Tracy Fracasse and K. Lee Brown, two former mortgage underwriters at Peoples United Bank, have brought a class action for themselves and other underwriters at Peoples for overtime wages. They claim that they were misclassified as exempt employees, when in fact they should have received overtime pay when they worked beyond forty hours per week.
In their complaint, they allege: “The work performed by the Plaintiffs and the Collective Class/Connecticut Class members did not require the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance, nor did it include work directly related to the management or general business operations of the Defendant. Rather, the work involved the routine processing of producing of mortgage loans, which was a basic service provided by the Defendant.”
They seek all unpaid overtime wages, liquidated damages and an order declaring the exempt classification of underwriters at Peoples to be unlawful.
This case is no doubt predicated on the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals from 2009 in which it ruled that mortgage loan underwriters at J.P. Morgan Chase to be entitled to overtime pay. This author wrote about that case when it came out.
The Plaintiffs are represented by William H. Clendenen, of New Haven, Connecticut. Good luck to attorney Clendenen in this interesting case.
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