A former executive at Guild Mortgage is suing the lender for wrongful termination, alleging the mortgage shop made up reasons to legitimize the layoff.
James Seely, former division vice president of the company's Northeast region, claims Guild terminated his employment agreement on Nov. 20, 2023 based on false pretenses after company leadership failed to convince him to quit. He is seeking $750,000 in damages.
Seely joined Guild after his company,
The suit, filed in Maine Jan. 2, accuses the mortgage lender of fabricating claims of material breaches of employment to avoid contractual obligations. This is something Guild has done in the past "to avoid paying an executive owed compensation, namely severance pay," Seely alleges.
Prior to getting laid off, Guild leadership tried to "force and pressure" him to resign so that he would "forfeit due and owed compensation under the employment agreement," Seely says in the suit.
When that failed, the mortgage shop sent a letter on Oct. 20, 2023 outlining items that justified a termination. This included: Seely's branch not being profitable, the executive not being engaged full-time in his work and that he shared a text message communication from Guild's CEO Terry Schmidt with another Guild employee.
The letter gave Seely 30 days to cure these items, but Guild prevented him from doing so by intentionally freezing him out of the organization, he alleges.
"Guild violated the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by…actively excluding Mr. Seely from meetings and discussions and thereby preventing Mr. Seely from "curing" items flagged within the letter; and ignoring Mr. Seely's requests to be invited to and gain access to Guild meetings that he should have attended as division vice president," the suit said.
About a week later, Oct. 27, 2023, Seely learned his role was offered to Bob Johnson, another executive employee at Guild and former RMS executive. As of Tuesday, Johnson's title is regional vice president at Guild Mortgage, per LinkedIn.
Seely sent a response letter to Guild asking for the company to stop freezing him out and allow him to join meetings, but Guild never responded, he said. He was later axed by the company with Guild stating that Seely "failed to cure the alleged breaches set forth in the letter, specifically "fail[ing] to devote [his] full time and attention to the performance of [his] job duties," and "demonstrating a lack of intent to cure."
