Federal lawsuit victory for employees
A federal court judge has awarded a $9 million judgment against Top Dot Mortgage for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regarding 166 loan officers who were not properly paid full wages or overtime. This judgment represents the larges FLSA lawsuit won in 2011, according to the loan officers’ lawyers The FLSA Act makes it illegal to short any employee wages or to pay less than time-and-a-half for time worked over 40 hours in a work week. The Act requires employers to maintain accurate records of hours actually worked by all of their employees.
“At trial, we proved that Top Dot willfully created a pay plan which denied its loan officers minimum and overtime wages in violation of federal law, while its individual owners wrongfully added millions of dollars to their personal income” said lead trial attorney Ryan Stephan in a statement.
The total verdict awards each of the 166 loan officers an average of $54,000 with the jury finding they each averaged ten hours of unpaid over time each week cited in the class action lawsuit.
“We believe this verdict sets the standard for all similar wage and hour cases moving forward. We look forward to bringing justice to other Americans who are similarly deprived of proper pay,” said trial counsel, Erik Langeland.
