Coral Springs employees often work far more than their schedules say. Medical assistants and office staff stay late to finish charts and calls, retail and restaurant employees cover extra shifts, and home-services and trade workers spend long days on the road between jobs. If you worked over 40 hours in a week and were not paid time and a half, your employer may owe you unpaid overtime, plus an equal amount in damages.
Kaplan Employment Law represents employees throughout Coral Springs and Broward County in unpaid overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Find out what you may be owed.
Overtime Rules That Apply in Coral Springs
Overtime in Florida is governed by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Florida does not have its own separate overtime statute, and there is no daily overtime rule. The core requirements are:
- Non-exempt employees must be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek.
- A workweek is a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive days. Each workweek stands alone. An employer cannot average a 50-hour week with a 30-hour week to avoid overtime.
- Private employers cannot substitute comp time for overtime pay.
- Overtime must be paid even if the employer did not authorize it, as long as the employer knew or should have known you were working.
Florida’s minimum wage rose to $15.00 per hour on September 30, 2026, and every overtime calculation starts from at least that floor.
Your Regular Rate Is More Than Your Base Pay
Overtime is calculated on your regular rate of pay, not just your base hourly wage. Non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, shift differentials, and certain service-charge distributions paid as wages generally must be included. When an employer pays time and a half on base pay alone and ignores a production bonus, a commission, or a service-charge payout, the overtime check comes up short every single week.
Common Overtime Violations in Coral Springs
Off-the-Clock Work
Finishing charts and paperwork after you clock out, opening and closing duties, required meetings, driving between job sites during the workday, and answering patient or customer calls and messages after hours are all work. If that work pushes your week past 40 hours, it must be paid at the overtime rate.
Edited Time Records
Some employers shave minutes or hours off time records, automatically deduct meal breaks you never took, or round time in ways that only favor the company.
Two Locations, One Employer
Hours worked at two locations, job sites, or businesses owned or controlled by the same employer generally must be combined. Splitting your hours across two payrolls does not erase overtime.
Straight Time for Overtime Hours
Paying your usual hourly rate for hours over 40, sometimes in cash, is an overtime violation even if you agreed to it.
Overtime for Tipped Employees
Tipped employees are entitled to overtime too, and it is often calculated wrong. With Florida’s $15.00 minimum wage and its $3.02 tip credit, an employer taking the tip credit must pay a tipped employee a cash wage of at least $19.48 for each overtime hour: one and a half times the full minimum wage, minus the same tip credit. Paying one and a half times the $11.98 tipped cash wage is not enough. Learn more about tip credit and tip pooling rules.
Exempt or Not? Your Title Does Not Decide
Many Coral Springs employees are told they are not entitled to overtime because they are salaried or have “manager” in their title. Neither one settles the question. To be exempt under the executive, administrative, or professional exemptions, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis, at a salary of at least $684 per week ($35,568 per year), and perform the required job duties. An office manager, assistant store manager, or “supervisor” who spends most of the day doing the same hands-on work as hourly staff may be misclassified, even with a salary and a title.
Independent Contractor Misclassification
Home-services technicians, delivery drivers, cleaners, tutors, and medical or office staff paid on a 1099 are frequently labeled independent contractors. The label in a contract does not control. Courts look at the economic reality of the relationship, including how much control the company has over your work, whether you have a real opportunity for profit or loss, whether you invest in your own equipment, how permanent the relationship is, and whether your work is an integral part of the business. Workers who are economically dependent on a single business are often employees entitled to minimum wage and overtime.
Common Employer Defenses, and How We Answer Them
“You never asked for overtime.”
You do not have to ask. If the employer knew or should have known you were working, the hours must be paid.
“We do not have records of those hours.”
Employers are required to keep accurate time records. When they fail to, employees can prove hours worked through their own records, schedules, texts, and reasonable estimates.
“You were exempt.”
The employer has to prove the exemption applies. We test the salary basis, the salary level, and what you actually did day to day.
Filing Deadlines and Where to File
FLSA overtime claims generally must be filed within two years of each unpaid paycheck, or three years if the violation was willful. Because the deadline runs paycheck by paycheck, every week you wait can cost you a week of recoverable wages. No administrative charge is required: claims can be filed directly in court, most often in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Fort Lauderdale Division, or brought to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. When many coworkers were underpaid the same way, the FLSA also allows a collective action in which employees join the same case. Broward County’s wage recovery ordinance provides an additional county enforcement path.
What You Can Recover
- Back wages: the overtime you should have been paid.
- Liquidated damages: an additional amount equal to your unpaid overtime, which effectively doubles the recovery, unless the employer proves it acted in good faith.
- Attorney’s fees and costs: under the FLSA, a prevailing employee’s reasonable attorney’s fees and costs are paid by the employer.
Fired for Complaining About Overtime?
Complaining to your employer about unpaid overtime is protected activity under the FLSA. If you were fired because you complained, you may have an FLSA retaliation claim in addition to your wage claim. Learn more about retaliation in Coral Springs.
FAQs About Unpaid Overtime in Coral Springs
Does Florida require overtime after eight hours in a day?
No. Florida follows the federal rule: overtime is owed for hours over 40 in a workweek, not over eight in a day.
I am paid a salary. Am I automatically exempt from overtime?
No. A salary is only one requirement. Your job duties must also qualify, and the salary must meet the federal minimum.
My employer pays me in cash for extra hours. Is that legal?
Not if you are paid straight time for hours over 40. Overtime hours must be paid at one and a half times your regular rate, however you are paid.
Can my employer make me take comp time instead of overtime pay?
No. Private employers must pay overtime in wages.
What if I do not have my own time records?
You can still bring a claim. Schedules, texts, pay stubs, coworker testimony, and reasonable estimates can establish hours when the employer’s records are missing or inaccurate.
Can I be fired for asking about my overtime pay?
No. Complaining about wage violations is protected activity, and firing you for it is illegal retaliation.
How much does it cost to bring an overtime claim?
Kaplan Employment Law offers a free initial case review. Under the FLSA, an employer that loses must pay the employee’s reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.
Owed Overtime in Coral Springs? Contact Us Today.
Every week you wait can reduce what you are able to recover. Start your free case review.
