Our lawsuit involves persons who worked as a mortgage consultant or originator, loan officer, or similar position for M&T Bank in the last three to six years and who worked over 40 hours in a week without receiving overtime compensation. Therefore, if you are a current or former M&T Bank mortgage consultant or originator, loan officer, or similar position who worked for M&T Bank during the last three years, and you worked over 40 hours in a week without receiving time-and-one-half for those hours over 40 worked, then you qualify to participate in the lawsuit. The number of years that an individual’s claims will be covered under state law varies depending on the state in which the individual was employed by M&T Bank. For example, in New York State, the statute of limitations for the potential claims against M&T Bank is six years. Other state statutes of limitations vary and may be shorter than the six years allowed in New York State.

Additionally, you can contact us so we can learn more about your employment situation and discuss any possible claims that you may have against M&T Bank. There is no charge or obligation for contacting us. We will not disclose to M&T Bank any information that you provide to our legal team. Remember that no attorney-client relationship with us will be created by contacting us to discuss your claims.

Contacting us to discuss your situation does not automatically qualify you to participate in the lawsuit. You will not be a plaintiff in the lawsuit until your Consent Form, if one is submitted to us, has been received, we confirm that you qualify for the lawsuit, and we file your Consent Form with the Court. Any communications with us will be kept confidential. Additionally, our representation of you at that time would cover only those wage claims that are included in the Complaint filed with the Court.

You have the right to seek other legal counsel to represent you. Choosing a lawyer is an important decision and you should select a lawyer to represent you who you feel can best protect your interests. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Yes. Rules called the statutes of limitations may limit the time for which back wages may be recovered, which ultimately reduces the amount of recoverable back wages. If you are awarded money under federal law, you will likely be able to collect back wages only for the two or three years immediately prior to the date of filing your Consent Form with the Court. The statute of limitations for damages under state law varies from state to state.

Therefore, should you decide to participate in the lawsuit, we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible. If you want to find out what, if anything, you may be owed, you should contact our legal team at once and submit at least a completed Information Sheet. Contacting us or submitting any documents, including an Information Sheet, will not form an attorney-client relationship. However, all communications with us about your situation will be kept confidential. If you would like to participate in the lawsuit against M&T Bank for unpaid wages, then you should also submit a Consent Form. If you qualify for the lawsuit, we would file your Consent Form to seek back wages on your behalf.

Click here for important information about our potential representation of you.

What is a collective action and who is involved?

In a collective (or class) action lawsuit, one or more people called “Class Representatives” sue on behalf of other people who have similar claims. The people together are a “Class” or “Class Members.” The individuals who sue—and all the Class Members like them—are called the plaintiffs. The company that is sued (for example, in this lawsuit, M&T Bank) is called the defendant. Unless each employee’s case ends up being tried separately, one Court resolves the issues for everyone in the Class—except for those people who choose not to join the Class.

A “party plaintiff” is a participant whose Consent Form is filed with the Court. A “named plaintiff” is a party plaintiff whose role in the litigation may potentially be more active than the other “party plaintiffs.” However, all plaintiffs may be expected to participate in pre-trial discovery or be asked to assist with the lawsuit. The named plaintiff(s)’ name is on the caption of the lawsuit and he or she is a representative of the party plaintiffs and all other persons similarly situated.

Though a lawsuit has been filed, the Court has not decided whether M&T Bank or the employees are correct. Additionally, the Court has not yet determined whether the employees have similar enough claims that it makes sense to have those claims combined in one case. This lawsuit is still in the very early stages, and, therefore, there is no money available now.

The Court will decide whether people who have opted in to the class action by filing a Consent Form may participate as Class Members. To determine whether you are indeed a proper member of the Class, M&T Bank will likely ask the Court to engage in a review of the circumstances of your employment with M&T Bank, taking into account factors such as job responsibilities, recording and payment for time worked, any defenses asserted against you by M&T Bank, and other procedural issues.

The law requires that employees be properly paid for all time they are suffered or permitted to work. Our investigation has shown that M&T Bank wrongly classified its mortgage consultants or originators, loan officers, and similar positions as “exempt,” which means such employees were paid only a salary and did not receive overtime compensation.

There is no doubt that the law requires employers to pay their employees for all the time that those employees work. Some companies do not pay overtime properly in order to save money, expecting that they can get away with it. Faced with the high cost of labor and overtime, some companies try to squeeze as much work from employees without having to pay them overtime when possible.

Some companies who violate the law are hopeful that if they can hide the violation and not make it too obvious to employees, by the time a lawsuit starts, they can save themselves more money than a lawsuit will cost. But, as the Department of Labor regulations make clear, that does not make such practices legal.

Job duties, not titles, determine whether you are entitled to recover unpaid wages. The general types of job duties that require payment of overtime compensation are those that are similar to the duties performed by mortgage consultants or originators, loan officers, and similar positions employed by M&T Bank.

To participate in the lawsuit, you need to first complete the Consent Form and Information Sheet, and return them to us. We will then evaluate your specific situation and determine whether you qualify to participate in this lawsuit. If you qualify, then by our filing your completed Consent Form, you will join the other M&T Bank employees who are seeking back wages that are owed to them. It is entirely your own decision whether or not to join the lawsuit. Remember, if you anticipate participating in this, or any, lawsuit against M&T Bank, then you must save and preserve all documents and electronic files related to your employment with M&T Bank.

Warning: If you qualify for the lawsuit and do not have a completed Consent Form filed with the court, then you cannot get any back wages from this lawsuit, should the lawsuit result in a recovery.

Our attorney-client relationship with you will start only if you decide to participate in the lawsuit against M&T Bank, and we file your Consent Form with the Court, which would cover only the unpaid wage claims listed in the Complaint filed with the Court. Even though a formal attorney-client relationship does not start until your Consent Form is filed, communications with us relating to information or advice concerning your possible claims against M&T Bank will be kept confidential, including any information provided to us in your Information Sheet.

Contacting us to discuss your situation does not automatically qualify you to participate in the lawsuit. You will not be a plaintiff in the lawsuit until your Consent Form, if one is submitted to us, has been received, we confirm that you qualify for the lawsuit, and we file your Consent Form with the Court. Any communications with us will be kept confidential.

If you do nothing, then you will not participate in the lawsuit that has been filed. You will not be bound by any decision made in the lawsuit. Therefore, you will not be entitled to any recovery should there be any for these claims.

You can also start your own lawsuit against M&T Bank. You’ll have to hire and likely pay your own lawyer for that lawsuit, and you’ll have to prove your claims. If you do exclude yourself so you can start your own lawsuit against M&T Bank, you should talk to your own lawyer soon because your claims may be subject to a statute of limitations for your Federal Claims of two years, or three years if the violations are found to be willful.

No. If you would like to talk to one of our attorneys handling the lawsuit, at no charge or obligation to you, then, please contact us. We will not share any information from you with anyone else, including M&T Bank. If you decide to participate in the lawsuit, and we file your Consent Form, then at that time M&T Bank may know your name. However, M&T Bank is not permitted by law to take any adverse employment action against you because you participated in the lawsuit.

The lawyers will handle most of the presentation of the case. From time to time, our legal team will ask you for information and you would need to give that information to them. You may also be asked to answer questions from M&T Bank’s attorney prior to trial for part of a day. Should there be a trial, some plaintiffs may testify. Regardless, if you are asked to give information or assist, the attorneys will work with you so that the process is as convenient for you as possible.

That does not matter – you still need to be paid for the work you performed. The REGULATIONS REQUIRE that you be paid for all time you are permitted to work. If you work the time, you are to be paid for it, even if you agreed to work, and even if you did not expect to be paid for the work.

You don’t need your time records to be able to recover money. The law requires M&T Bank to keep accurate records of the number of hours an employee works. If the records are either not accurate or not in existence, your reasonable estimate of the number of hours you worked is taken as true. This means that the amount you get is calculated by your reasonable estimate of the hours you worked, not by what M&T Bank thinks the employees worked.

Yes. The fact that you are paid a salary does not matter. If you worked over 40 hours a week and do not fall into one of the several narrow legal classification exemptions, then you must be paid premium overtime compensation at a rate of time-and-one-half your regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of 40 per week, even if you are paid salary. Your hourly rate for hours over 40 is calculated by dividing the amount you were paid in that week by 40 and multiplying that number by one and one-half. In this instance, our investigation has shown, and the Complaint alleges, that M&T Bank wrongly classified their mortgage consultants or originators, loan officers and similar positions as “exempt.” These employees, although paid a salary, were nonetheless supposed to be paid overtime for the weeks where those employees worked over 40 hours.

No. There is absolutely no cost to you to participate in the lawsuit or to discuss your situation and possible claims with us.

You will also not be charged any money upfront to participate in the lawsuit. Any legal fees would be dependent on the outcome of the lawsuit. If we prevail in the lawsuit, then any legal fees will be paid by M&T Bank, or approved by the Court and be paid out of a settlement fund. Therefore, while legal fees might reduce the total amount of funds potentially received by all the party plaintiffs, any legal fee will not be paid by you personally. If there is no recovery, then you are not obligated to pay any fee or cost.

If money damages or other benefits are awarded to the employees, then we will ask the Court to award us our legal fees and expenses. Typically, if a case settles, a portion of any settlement is approved by the Court to be paid to us to cover our attorneys’ fees. Costs of the lawsuit are also typically paid out of the settlement fund. In the case that the lawsuit goes to trial, then we would ask the Court to award to us our fees and costs from the damages determined by a final verdict. In no case would you be asked to spend your own money for attorney fees or costs. You won’t have to pay these fees and expenses out-of-pocket. If the Court grants the lawyers’ request, the fees and expenses would be either deducted from any money obtained for the class or paid separately by M&T Bank. To the extent fees and costs are paid from a settlement fund, the Class Members’ share of the fund would be reduced.

If money damages or benefits are obtained as a result of a settlement or trial, then, if you are eligible to receive a portion of those money damages or benefits, you would be notified about how to participate. We do not know how long such a process would take.

Yes. It’s important and helpful to our legal team that all current and former mortgage consultants or originators, loan officers, and similar positions of M&T Bank learn about the lawsuit as soon as possible because of the deadlines that may apply to any owed back wages.

Please let anyone else who might be interested in the lawsuit know about it so that they do not lose the opportunity to receive unpaid wages.

It would take a detailed calculation based on the facts of your case to determine how much you would be owed in back wages. our team can provide an estimate to you if you contact us.

However, the amounts can be significant. You could be entitled to some or all of the following:

1. time-and-one-half if that additional time means you worked over 40 hours in a week;
2. doubling of that amount; and
3. your attorneys’ fees paid by M&T Bank.

Click here for important information about our potential representation of you.

Our attorney-client relationship with you will start only if you decide to participate in the lawsuit and we file your Consent Form with the Court, which would cover only the unpaid wage claims listed in the Complaint filed with the Court. Even though a formal attorney-client relationship does not start until your Consent Form is filed, communications with us relating to information or advice concerning your possible claims against M&T Bank will be kept confidential, including any information provided to us in your Information Sheet.

Contacting us to discuss your situation does not automatically qualify you to participate in the lawsuit. You will not be a plaintiff in the lawsuit until your Consent Form, if one is submitted to us, has been received, we confirm that you qualify for the lawsuit, and we file your Consent Form with the Court, at which time our representation of you will be limited to only the unpaid wage claims listed in the Complaint filed with the Court. Any communications with us will be kept confidential.

Please also keep in mind that important deadlines are passing daily that could reduce your recovery. Additionally, you may have claims that are not included in the information you provide to us, or are not the types of legal claims that we would handle. Therefore, we encourage you to retain another attorney now if you want to investigate any claims you may have. You have the right to seek other legal counsel to represent you. Choosing a lawyer is an important decision and you should select a lawyer to represent you who you feel can best protect your interests. Remember, if you anticipate participating in any lawsuit against M&T Bank, then you must save and preserve all documents and electronic files related to your employment with M&T Bank. Please contact us if you have any questions at 1-877-272-4066.