Federal Mortgage Guaranty hit with suit alleging retaliatory behavior

After that, it is alleged, Simons canceled some of their scheduled calls or would leave Meyer waiting in a chat room he would never join. She turned to Jewkes to complain only to be told to “deal with it.”

Despite a review in 2021 noting her performance exceeded expectations and an award in February for her group’s performance the previous month, she allegedly received a call from Human Resources, Simons and Jewkes informing her she was being terminated unless she accepted a demotion as an hourly call center loan officer – a position she accepted. She was assigned to report to sales manager Anthony Mason – whom, it is outlined, she had previously outperformed each month in 2021. With her demotion, the company canceled Meyer’s guarantee contract which still had $50,000 remaining in unpaid commission guarantee and her salary was reduced from $60,000 to $30,000 annually, according to the lawsuit. She ultimately resigned on April 1, complaining of gender discrimination and retaliation.

Palmer, the third plaintiff, worked as a mortgage professional from 2016. She was among the top producing loan officers in the nation as she worked remotely from a small brokerage in Southern California, and one of the top 1% of all originators through United Wholesale Mortgage, according to the litigation.

On March 1, 2021, she was hired by Simons in a non-producing role as a sales manager, tasked with onboarding a new team of mortgage loan originators. She was assigned to report to Jewkes. Because she did not have an assigned team when she started her job, she built her team from scratch – a process that took 45 days after Palmer’s start dates before her first team member was onboarded, the suit details. Continuing to build her team, she had six loan originators after Christmas 2021. By February, one-third of her team had less than 30 days’ experience and only two of her loan originators had worked for FGMC more than six months. “Palmer was confident that her new team was finally in place,” the suit reads.

According to the lawsuit, Palmer chose not to hire one candidate for loan officer she interviewed largely because of his use of terms such as “honey” and “sweetheart” during the process along with questions she viewed as inappropriate dealing with her family circumstances. Despite being aware of the candidate’s conduct, Jewkes still chose to hire him, according to the lawsuit. He was assigned to a team headed by Anthony Simon.