SAN JOSE, CA – Plaintiff Amber Morphis was hired as a manager by Metlife, MetLife Home Loans and MetLife Bank, to recruit banking industry leadership throughout the Northern California region. Plaintiff Morphis recruited over 40 industry leaders in her first 7 months of employment. In January 2009, Regional Manager Thomas Marron announced to its Northern California branch and operations managers that auditors would be coming to each bank branch to conduct an audit on all RESPA (Real-Estate Settlement Procedure Act ) and Reg B Disclosures. MetLife manager Marron instructed all managers to falsify internal records to reflect that disclosures had been made on loans, when in fact they had not.

Plaintiff investigated and found that close to 2000 loans had not received disclosures, and that manager Marron had intentionally not hired disclosure staff so that he could receive a higher salary for himself.

Branches throughout Northern California, one of the hardest hit foreclosure regions in the nation, were inundated with customer and realtor complaints to Plaintiff Morphis about the lack of disclosures and the resulting time it was taking for the loans to close.  Consumers were losing their interest rate locks and their homes to higher interest rates and bank imposed fees. One borrower in Los Altos, who had applied for a cash out loan to pay for her mothers funeral service, lost her rate which pushed her out of qualifying for the loan. As a result, the consumer lost her home and could not pay for her mothers funeral expenses. Plaintiff was distraught listening to these horrible stories because loans were not being processed in time.

Plaintiff made several complaints to managers and to the internal whistle blower hotline.  She attempted to call a meeting of upper management. Under pressure from complaints from consumers and her newly hired colleagues who had been implicated in the failure to disclose, thousands of RESPA/REGB disclosure violations, Plaintiff suffered an emotional breakdown when, as a result of her complaints to MetLife management, she was investigated for trumped-up allegations, immediately written-up, and then terminated.

Ms. Morphis filed her wrongful termination lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Monday, November 16, 2009.

According to Plaintiff’s attorney, Angela Alioto, "it's incredible that a Corporation like Metropolitan Life could continually defraud its customers and then terminate someone who was brave enough to take a stand and do the right thing."

BERKELEY, CA– After reporting fraud by her CEO to a Board Member on multiple occasions, Porsche Brown was fired from her position as Chief Financial Officer of the Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union in Berkeley.

Specifically, Brown refused to go along with CEO Gary Bell’s directive not to lower mortgage rates for several adjustable-rate mortgage holders. Some of these home-owner should have seen their rates fall by as much as 1% but Bell refused to lower their rates to follow the index the note was tied to.

Additionally, Bell violated the requirements of the National Credit Union Association, the federal governing body for credit unions, that the credit union not take out any new first mortgages because it was in “troubled condition.” When Ms. Brown refused to go along with this unlawful conduct, her CEO told her, “[i]f you don’t do as I say, you’ll need to find some other place to work!”

While Ms. Brown complained to the Board of Directors about this unlawful conduct, nothing was done to change the situation or protect the credit union’s customers from fraud. When her complaints escalated, Ms. Brown was fired.

Ms. Brown filed her wrongful termination lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday, November 2, 2009.

According to Plaintiff’s attorney, Angela Alioto, “it is incredible that in this climate, a credit union could continually defraud it’s customers and then terminate someone who was brave enough to take a stand and do the right thing.”

Angela Alioto was recently named a Finalist for the 9th Annual San Francisco Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for her work in the Valladares v. Madera Quality Nut Case resulting in a jury verdict of over $25 million.  San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association 9th Annual Trial Lawyer of the Year Gala will be held on Wednesday, May 2nd at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Angela Alioto has been chosen by the Daily Journal editorial staff as one of the Top Women Litigators in California and will be honored at a special reception on May 9, 2007 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. In addition, the Daily Journal will publish its annual Top Women Litigators special supplement that will be given to all attendees at the reception and distributed throughout the state on May 10, 2007 in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal and the Daily Journal's Daily Recorder in Sacramento.