Champion Mortgage, Keybank National Assoc. and Keycorp Wage and Hour Violations

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On March 3, 2005, Touhy & Touhy, Ltd., and Erik H. Langeland, P.C. filed a nationwide class action in New Jersey, Chemi et al v. Champion Mortgage et al, seeking to recover unpaid overtime on behalf of Champion Mortgage “loan officers” that routinely work 50, 60 and 70 hours per week. The lawsuit charges that Champion Mortgage violated Federal Law by deliberately failing to pay overtime wages as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).

Under the FLSA, employees are entitled to time-and-a-half pay for each hour over 40 hours worked in a workweek, unless they are exempt from the Act. The FLSA stipulates that employers do not have to pay overtime to higher level workers in executive, administrative and professional jobs.

However, the mere fact that an employee is given a title, classified by an employer as exempt and paid on a salary basis does not automatically remove that employee from the protection of the FLSA. Rather, determinative factors include whether the primary duties and responsibilities of the employee comply with applicable federal standards and are commonly associated with management.

Furthermore, the United States Department of Labor has already issued two opinion letters that specifically categorize “loan officers” as entitled to overtime.

In this case, Plaintiffs allege that Champion Mortgage loan officers were required to work in excess of 50 hours per week and were paid a minimal base salary. Plaintiffs also allege that these employees spent most of their 50 hour plus workweeks engaged in non-managerial duties and that they have not been properly compensated for overtime.

“We wanted to file this lawsuit now to ensure that the hundreds of employees we believe were improperly denied overtime by Champion Mortgage receive fair compensation for the all the long weeks they worked 50, 60, 70 and sometimes 80 hours”, stated Ryan F. Stephan, attorney for the Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs allege that this lawsuit may apply to hundreds of loan officers employed by Champion Mortgage across the United States.

Our primary goals of this class action are to:

• prohibit Champion Mortgage from failing or refusing to pay overtime wages to “loan officers”;
• recover lost overtime wages and other just damages for loan officers who were denied overtime; and
• prevent Champion Mortgage from denying overtime wages in the future.