In the years Villager Jan Hickerson worked as a sales representative for Properties of The Villages she was told “over and over again” that she and her colleagues had won “the real estate lotto.”
They were constantly reminded of how fortunate they were to be selling real estate in The Villages.
“And yet, the entire time I worked there, I walked on eggshells thinking that at any moment I could be called into the office and fired for no reason whatsoever,” Hickerson said in a deposition in June in a case brought against her by Properties of The Villages.
Hickerson was no rookie. She’d sold real estate in Oklahoma, Georgia and San Diego before she moved to The Villages with her husband in 2013.
She had been a “trailing spouse” as her husband worked an as air traffic controller and was climbing the corporate ladder. She had learned to adapt in the world of real estate.
She signed an independent contractor agreement with Properties of The Villages, but the mandatory trolley rides, attendance taken at sales meetings and phone and sales shifts without compensation didn’t feel like a true independent contractor arrangement.
“And there would be no reason, if they treated their employees — or, excuse me — their independent contractors, appropriately, that they would have to handcuff them with the non-compete clause,” Hickerson said in her deposition.
Properties of The Villages sued Hickerson, claiming she “violated certain restrictive covenants” of her independent contractor agreement. She filed a counterclaim alleging that she was entitled to overtime compensation pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Hickerson and Properties of The Villages settled their case earlier this month, but Hickerson’s deposition sheds light on the inner workings of the powerful sales arm of The Villages.
Hickerson never went to work for former top-producing agents for Properties of The Villages Chris Day and Jason Kranz, who went on to form KD Premier Realty. But the stories in Hickerson’s deposition mirror those of former sales representatives who defected to the upstart real estate firm.
Hickerson’s case had been lumped into a suit Properties of The Villages filed against Day, Kranz and the others.
The independent contractor agreement they all signed is at the heart of a suit Properties of The Villages is pursuing against them. Properties of The Villages sought a preliminary injunction against the rogue agents, trying to prevent them from selling real estate in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.
Properties of The Villages wants to enforce a 24-month non-compete clause and claims the rogue agents benefitted from confidential information and “customer goodwill” built up by The Villages.
Day, Kranz and other former Properties of The Villages independent contractors have maintained they were treated more like employees, forced to ride the trolley, memorize and never deviate from tightly-written scripts and act as “Uber and skycap” for prospective homebuyers.
On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Philip Lammens handed Day, Kranz and their associates a major victory when he recommended that Properties of The Villages’ motion for a preliminary injunction be denied.
After hearing oral arguments from both sides on Aug. 6, Lammens reached several conclusions:
• Properties of The Villages has “not established that its customer information was actually confidential.” Day explicitly said he “never received information while working at The Villages that he understood he was not to share with people outside of The Villages.”
• Properties of The Villages claimed “it has a legitimate business interest in customer goodwill associated with The Villages.” However, Properties of The Villages has not shown that “customer goodwill” is in need of protection, Lammens wrote.
• Properties of The Villages defended the “shift” responsibilities of its sales representatives claiming it enabled them to “develop relationships with the persons they met in these shifts in an effort to get those persons to tour with and ultimately buy homes from them in The Villages. These shifts are designed to assist the salespersons in building up a customer base for sales of newly-built and pre-owned homes.” Information about customers was entered by all of the sales representatives into The Villages’ AS/400 program. But prior to his departure, Day dropped out of shift duty and began entering his customers’ information into his phone or a Constant Contact program. He argued the customer information he took to KD Premier Realty was from his own personal database.
The magistrate has concluded that the evidence in their motion indicates the Properties of The Villages’ case will not succeed on its merits.