The Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday said that workers employed by businesses and other third parties to perform in-home personal care services for the elderly, infirm, or medically homebound are not exempt from the state's minimum-wage law.

The high court's ruling, penned by Justice David Nahmias for a unanimous court, opens the door for thousands of workers who deliver in-home care across the state to seek back and future wages for the time they spend traveling between job assignments, said Marc Howard, a partner at Atlanta's Pope & Howard and an attorney for the plaintiff workers. Because those employees are not paid to commute between homes where they provide care, their attorneys contend that the workers are not paid for all the hours they work and, as a result, their pay averages less than minimum wage.

“We're thrilled, obviously,” Howard said Monday. “We represent a lot of people who are not making a lot of money and not getting paid for the work they do.”