Life Surge Sued for Labor Violations, Not Paying Overtime
Lawsuit claims it classified sales advisors as independent contractors rather than employees.
Life Surge, a company that delivers events claiming to help educate Christians to steward their financial resources for Kingdom impact, often through real estate transactions, has been sued for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and failure to pay for overtime hours worked.
Life Surge President Shawn Marcell at a Life Surge event / Video screenshot
Life Surge misclassified employees as independent contractors in order to save labor costs and increase its profits, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida last week.
The plaintiff, John Dessauer, worked from 2023 until 2025 as a sales advisor for Life Surge, whose job was to sell Life Surge’s coaching and mentoring services. He was compensated entirely by commission. However, Dessauer argues that his sales activity does not meet the definition of an independent contractor.
Life Surge controlled all of his work parameters, conditions, rules, and procedures and, therefore, Dessauer and his fellow sales advisors should have been classified and compensated as employees. Life Surge told sales advisors where and when they could make sales, provided all the sales leads, closely monitored their sales activity, provided all the materials for the sales presentations, and required them to ask for time off.
Dessauer asserts that the level of control exercised by Life Surge over its sales team demonstrates that they were employees and not independent contractors.
In fact, Life Surge seemed to admit that when, on December 15, 2025, it reclassified Dessauer and his fellow sales advisors as employees. Despite the reclassification, Life Surge has not compensated Dessauer for overtime hours he worked during the previous three years.
Access to MinistryWatch content is free. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. To make a donation, click here.
Dessauer claims he regularly worked in excess of 40 hours per week and claims he should have been compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act at a rate of 1.5 times his regular pay rate for every hour he worked beyond 40 hours in a week.
He is seeking the overtime compensation along with liquidated damages, interest, and attorney’s fees.
Dessauer brought his action on behalf of himself and all other sales advisors who performed similar work for Life Surge during the past three years.
In August, Life Surge founder Joe Johnson was sued by the Department of Justice for allegedly abusing a section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows for a charitable deduction after the sale of property to a charity.
The DOJ argues that Johnson’s abusive bargain sale transactions using his other entities, Welfont Companies and Mercy Foundation Group, have cost valuable government resources and estimates that the 99 total transactions overstating the charitable deduction could have resulted in a tax loss of over $46 million.
The Department of Justice does not name Life Surge in its lawsuit.
The next Life Surge one-day event is scheduled for February 28 in Dallas and features speakers such as Tim Tebow, John Maxwell, Sage Steele, and Nick Vujicic.
Life Surge did not respond to a request for a statement in reaction to the lawsuit before the time of publication.
TO OUR READERS: The mission of MinistryWatch is to help Christian donors become more faithful stewards of the resources God has entrusted to them. Do you know of a story that will help us fulfill our mission, or do you want to give us feedback about this or any other story? If so, please email us at [email protected].
