Archer v. Gateway Funding Diversified Mortgage Services Limited Partnership, 1:12-cv-01099

Plaintiffs were loan officers for Defendants from 2002–2011 and were paid exclusively by commissions; no hourly wages were ever demanded.
Plaintiffs received client leads from Defendants’ advertising and were required to spend one day weekly in Defendants’ offices; otherwise they could work remotely.
Plaintiffs determined their own hours, worked primarily outside the office, and were discouraged from work by phone or email.
Defendants allegedly did not track time or supervise out-of-office work; Plaintiffs claim they worked 40–55 hours weekly.
Archer (Apr 2011–Dec 2011), DeSantis (Mar–Jun 2011), Tydings (2002–Sept 2011), and Vanik (2008–Jul 2011) had pay issues including little to no wages and underpayment.
Plaintiffs filed suit in May 2012 asserting FLSA and Maryland wage-law claims; motion to facilitate notice was denied for lack of similarity and manageability.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether plaintiffs may obtain court-facilitated notice	Archer argues all loan officers share a common policy.	Freedmont disputes uniform exemption and time-tracking facts.	Conditional certification denied due to need for substantial individualized inquiries.
Whether plaintiffs showed they are ‘similarly situated’	All loan officers were exempt as outside salesmen and unpaid overtime.	Exemption classification disputed; time spent outside office varies; no common plan proven.	Not shown; class not sufficiently similar under §216(b).
Whether the action is manageable as a collective action	Court should permit notice despite early stage.	Individualized inquiries would predominate; not manageable.	Inappropriate to certify; would require extensive individualized determinations.
Threshold burden for conditional certification	Uniform primary duty to sell loans implies common policy.	Record shows variability in roles (inside vs outside sales) and time-tracking.	Threshold not met; cannot conclude a similarly situated group exists.

Marroquin v. Canales, 236 F.R.D. 257 (D.Md. 2006) (notice-stage modest evidence for similarly situated plaintiffs)
Camper v. Home Quality Mgmt. Inc., 200 F.R.D. 516 (D.Md. 2000) (notice-stage and class definition considerations)
Syrja v. Westat, Inc., 756 F.Supp.2d 682 (D.Md. 2010) (two-stage approach to collective actions under FLSA)
Rawls v. Augustine Home Health Care, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 298 (D.Md. 2007) (second-stage scrutiny of similarly situated requirement)
Purdham v. Fairfax Cnty. Pub. Sch., 629 F.Supp.2d 544 (E.D.Va. 2009) (manageability concerns for conditional certification)
Hoffmann–LaRoche, Inc. v. Sperling, 493 U.S. 165 (U.S. 1989) (constructs judicial economy rationale for §216(b) actions)
Quinteros v. Sparkle Cleaning, Inc., 532 F.Supp.2d 762 (D.Md. 2008) (preliminary showing at the notice stage requires evidence of similarity)
Myles v. Prosperity Mortg. Co., 2012 WL 1963390 (D.Md. 2012) (discussed but not cited due to WL citation (not included))