Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) is currently defending two major lawsuits and has recently concluded two others. The active cases are a federal wage-theft class action brought by New York home care workers (Calderon v. Public Partnerships LLC) and a June 2026 civil fraud suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice over PPL’s New York Medicaid contract. A Pennsylvania overtime class action, Talarico v. Public Partnerships LLC, ended in PPL’s favor in May 2026, and a separate lawsuit challenging New York’s Medicaid home care transition, Engesser v. McDonald, settled in October 2025 with PPL remaining in place as the statewide intermediary.
Who PPL Is
PPL is a Delaware-incorporated financial management services company and an affiliate of Boston-based Public Consulting Group Inc.1Home Health Care News. Two Private Equity Firms Reportedly Back Self-Directed At-Home Care Enabler Public Partnerships It acts as a fiscal intermediary for Medicaid self-directed care programs, meaning it handles payroll, tax withholding, and employment paperwork so Medicaid participants can hire their own caregivers, often friends or family. PPL reports operating in 18 states, supporting more than 700,000 participant-caregiver relationships, and processing over $10 billion in payments.2PPL. PPL Home Page That back-office role sits at the center of every lawsuit against the company: plaintiffs and prosecutors have accused PPL of failing at the payroll and compliance work it was hired to do, while PPL has argued it does not control the underlying employment relationships enough to be liable for them.
The DOJ Medicaid Fraud Lawsuit
On June 16, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice sued PPL, the New York State Department of Health, and Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.3U.S. Department of Justice. Department of Justice Files Suit to Stop Ongoing Medicaid Fraud The suit centers on how PPL became the sole statewide fiscal intermediary for New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), a Medicaid program serving roughly 250,000 to 280,000 elderly and disabled New Yorkers.
The DOJ alleges four core problems. First, that New York ran a sham procurement in the summer of 2024 designed to pre-select PPL. Second, that PPL and state officials knowingly misrepresented that the April 1, 2025 transition deadline was achievable when they knew it was not. Third, that PPL disregarded contractual caps on revenues and profits, generating millions of dollars in unauthorized Medicaid charges. Fourth, that the state failed to hold PPL to the financial terms of the contract.
Federal prosecutors have asked the court to freeze the flow of gross revenue to PPL under the CDPAP contract and to appoint a temporary receiver.4Politico. DOJ Accuses New York of Unlawful Medicaid Home Care Scheme The case is in its early stages. It is the most serious threat to PPL’s continued role in New York because the requested relief targets the contract itself, not just damages.
Calderon v. Public Partnerships LLC: The Wage-Theft Class Action
The Legal Aid Society and Katz Banks Kumin LLP filed Philip Calderon, et al. v. Public Partnerships, LLC (Case No. 25-cv-02320) on April 28, 2025, in the Eastern District of New York.5Katz Banks Kumin LLP. NY Home Care Lawsuit The lead plaintiff, Philip Calderon, is a 24-year-old personal assistant who cares for his father and reported receiving no wages at all from PPL between April 1, 2025 and the filing date, despite working full-time.
The First Amended Complaint, filed May 28, 2025, alleges that PPL’s timekeeping systems (Time4Care, Telephony, and PPL@Home) lost or deleted timesheets, generated erroneous automatic clock-outs during overnight shifts, and left workers unpaid for weeks.6Legal Aid Society. Calderon v. PPL First Amended Complaint The complaint asserts violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the New York Labor Law, and the New York Wage Parity Act, including failure to pay for all hours worked, failure to pay overtime and “spread of hours” premiums, and unlawful wage deductions.
A separate set of allegations targets how PPL handles Wage Parity Act supplemental payments. The complaint alleges PPL diverts portions of that supplemental pay into “Wellness” and “Flex Benefit” plans that workers say are inaccessible or of negligible value, and does not properly disclose the allocation on pay stubs.7New York State Senate. Legal Aid Society CDPAP Testimony
The proposed class covers tens of thousands of personal assistants in New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, drawn from a PPL workforce of more than 300,000 personal assistants statewide.6Legal Aid Society. Calderon v. PPL First Amended Complaint As of mid-June 2026, the docket shows a Motion for Preliminary Approval due by June 23, 2026, indicating settlement discussions may be underway, though no terms have been disclosed publicly.8PACER Monitor. Calderon v. Public Partnerships, LLC Docket
Engesser v. McDonald: The Settled Transition Case
Consumers and disability organizations sued to stop the CDPAP transition itself. Engesser et al. v. McDonald (Case No. 1:25-cv-01689, E.D.N.Y.), filed March 26, 2025, by the New York Legal Assistance Group and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, named Health Commissioner James McDonald rather than PPL. It alleged the state’s rushed consolidation violated the Medicaid Act’s notice and fair hearing provisions and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.9NYLAG. Engesser et al. v. McDonald Complaint
Judge Frederic Block issued a temporary restraining order on March 31, 2025, and a preliminary injunction on April 10, 2025, requiring the state to keep consumers in care and workers paid through prior fiscal intermediaries while enrollment problems were sorted out.10NY Health Access. Engesser Preliminary Injunction Summary The case settled on October 3, 2025. Under the settlement, PPL remained the statewide fiscal intermediary, but managed care organizations and local social services districts had to conduct outreach to unenrolled consumers, an August 1, 2025 registration deadline was set, and consumers facing disenrollment were guaranteed fair hearing rights. The court retained jurisdiction for six months to enforce compliance.11New York State Department of Health. Engesser Settlement Stipulation Although PPL was not a defendant, the settlement shapes the compliance environment it now operates in.
Talarico v. Public Partnerships LLC: The Closed Pennsylvania Overtime Case
Before the New York litigation, PPL’s largest legal exposure was Ralph Talarico v. Public Partnerships, LLC (Case No. 5:17-cv-02165), filed May 11, 2017 in Pennsylvania federal court. It alleged PPL was a “joint employer” of direct care workers and owed unpaid overtime under the FLSA and Pennsylvania law.12Cohen Milstein. Ralph Talarico v. Public Partnerships, LLC
The procedural path was long. The district court granted PPL summary judgment in January 2020; the Third Circuit reversed in December 2020, finding a genuine factual dispute about PPL’s role.13NKA. Public Partnerships LLC and PCG Public Partnerships In May 2022 the district court certified a class of over 15,000 Pennsylvania workers on state law claims and an opt-in FLSA collective of more than 4,900. After a seven-day bench trial in October 2023, Judge Schmehl ruled for PPL on January 30, 2025, finding it was not a joint employer.
The Third Circuit affirmed on May 19, 2026, in a nonprecedential opinion applying the Enterprise Rent-A-Car joint-employer test. The panel found that although PPL handled payroll, tax withholding, and administrative recordkeeping, it lacked meaningful control over the “core employment relationship.” Participants, not PPL, recruited, selected, supervised, scheduled, and terminated their care workers; PPL could not override a participant’s hiring decision, and participants set the hourly wage within a state-determined range.14Buchalter. Talarico v. Public Partnerships: Third Circuit Finds Administrative Vendor Was Not a Joint Employer Plaintiffs’ counsel confirmed there would be no recovery for class members.12Cohen Milstein. Ralph Talarico v. Public Partnerships, LLC
The Procurement Controversy Behind the DOJ Case
The DOJ’s fraud allegations build on questions that had been circulating for over a year about how PPL won the CDPAP contract. New York’s legislature authorized the single-intermediary consolidation in mid-April 2024 as part of the state budget. Records later showed that a Health Department official had invited PPL representatives to a meeting on April 4, 2024, two weeks before the legislature voted, and that senior Health Department officials and advisers to Governor Kathy Hochul attended.15Empire Center. Email Confirms Early Contact Between NY Officials and CDPAP Contractor
At an August 21, 2025 hearing before the New York Senate Health and Investigations committees, PPL Vice President Patty Byrnes testified under oath that PPL had “no conversations” with Health Department officials before the budget was passed. Eight days later she wrote to Senate committee chairs James Skoufis and Gustavo Rivera reversing that testimony, admitting there had been “general communications with DOH staff” in “late March and early April” of 2024. Skoufis, who had presented draft legislation from the Governor’s office that named PPL before the bidding opened, called the situation “disturbing.”16Spectrum News. PPL Admits Conversations With State
In October 2025, the New York Appellate Division, First Department, upheld the contract award, rejecting legal challenges and finding the Health Department followed proper procedures.17New York State Department of Health. Court Affirms CDPAP Contract Award The DOJ’s June 2026 complaint reaches a different conclusion about the same procurement.
Where the Cases Stand
Two matters are live. The DOJ fraud suit, seeking a revenue freeze and a receiver, is the most consequential for PPL’s future in New York. The Calderon wage-theft class action is moving toward a possible settlement, with a preliminary approval filing deadline of June 23, 2026. Two matters are closed: the Engesser transition case settled in October 2025 with PPL retained as intermediary under court-monitored compliance, and the Talarico overtime case ended in PPL’s favor when the Third Circuit affirmed the trial verdict in May 2026.