25.  To compete in the increasingly competitive world of insurance sales, Farm Bureau  relies on an army of nearly 2,000 Insurance Agents to sell its insurance policies throughout 14  states.    26.  Its Insurance Agents are solicited and managed by agency managers, who Farm  Bureau also classifies as independent contractors.    27.  To help execute its scheme to defraud against its Insurance Agents, Farm Bureau  exploits its agency managers to use their positions of trust in the communities where they live to  solicit and ensnare new Insurance Agents in the Farm Bureau enterprise. Without the perpetual  growth of new Insurance Agents into the Farm Bureau enterprise, the enterprise would fall apart.  The perpetual treadmill of agency growth and expansion is essential to the ongoing success—and  fraud perpetrated by—the Farm Bureau enterprise.   29.  In the 2000s, Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (Iowa) began a corporate  transformation to camouflage its corporate structure. In a District of Kansas case, the Court in  2008 observed the “confusion” caused by Farm Bureau’s corporate structure, which Farm Bureau  itself referred to as an “intricately structured fashion.”7   30.  Today, Farm Bureau continues its confusing corporate structure of entities, and  further discovery is needed to reveal that structure.    32.  Despite earning over $1B in annual revenue on the backs of its Insurance Agents  in the field, Farm Bureau refuses to treat the majority of its workforce as employees. Instead, it  improperly labels all of its Insurance Agents as “independent contractors” while treating them  like employees. Farm Bureau forces all of its Insurance Agents into an exclusive employment  relationship where the agents must sell only Farm Bureau products, obey an extensive set of  company rules and regulations, and leave all clients with Farm Bureau when the employment  relationship ends—all of which Farm Bureau unilaterally dictates in its own discretion.    33.  Each Farm Bureau Agent must sign an Agent Agreement (the “Agreement”) as a  mandatory condition of employment.    34.  The terms of the Agreement between each member of the Class and Farm Bureau  are the same in all material respects, and the Agreements for Plaintiff is representative of the  Agreements between Farm Bureau and each member of the Class.   36.  Although Farm Bureau’s Insurance Agents bring in all the business and generate  all the revenue, it is Farm Bureau’s executive officers alone who reward themselves with top-tier  employee benefits packages. Indeed, while Farm Bureau’s Insurance Agents cannot participate  in the company’s retirement plan, its highly-paid executives provide themselves with two  different retirement plans and typically participate in both.     37.  By misclassifying its Insurance Agents as independent contractors on paper, while  actually controlling them as employees, Farm Bureau has been able to conceal the actual  employment relationship it has with its agents and thereby unlawfully deny its Insurance Agents  access to the employee protections, rights, and benefit plans they are legally entitled to receive.    38.  Farm Bureau is also willfully committing tax fraud by failing to properly pay state  employment taxes owed by falsely classifying all of its Insurance Agents as independent  contractors. It thereby deprives the fourteen states it does business in of vital revenue.   39.  The Department of Labor and several courts have recently shined a light on the   misclassification of employees as independent contractors. As a result, when deciding if a person  is an employee or an independent contractor, courts have increasingly looked beyond labels and  titles and focused instead on two objective factors that cannot be manipulated: the actual degree  of control and economic dependence. Farm Bureau flunks both factors by wide margins.   41.  It is only after the Agents sign the Agreement and become financially dependent  upon Farm Bureau for economic survival that they learn of Farm Bureau’s lengthy lists of rules  and requirements (none of which is listed in the Agreement) that all agents must follow or face  termination.     42.  Once the Insurance Agent realize the true nature of the employment relationship,  they face a lose-lose-lose dilemma: (a) stay trapped under the thumb of Farm Bureau and be  treated like an employee without any employee rights or benefits; (b) face termination by Farm  Bureau, which could strike at any point, and then start over, as Farm Bureau prohibits its agents  from contacting any clients obtained during the time with Farm Bureau; or (c) quit and start over,  as Farm Bureau prohibits its agents from contacting any clients obtained during the time with  Farm Bureau.     43.  By purposefully misclassifying its Insurance Agents as “independent contractors,”  rather than employees, Farm Bureau has not only unjustly enriched itself (by avoiding the  business costs of extending employee benefits to its Insurance Agents), but it has also evaded and  continues to evade compliance with state and federal laws governing employee benefits, rights,  and protections.   45.  Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to stop to the systematic fraud perpetuated by Farm  Bureau and its executives, who continue to prey on unsuspecting “Agents” by promising them a  rewarding and independent insurance career but have no intention of delivering on that promise.   46.  The terms of the Agreement between each member of the Class and Farm Bureau  are the same in all material respects, and the Agreements for Plaintiffs are representative of the  Agreements between Farm Bureau and each member of the Class.   47.  Defendant Farm Bureau and its affiliate network lure Insurance Agents into their  operations with promises of independence and self-employment, but after Agents sign the  Agreement, Defendants force the Agents to obey a morass of rules that control all material aspects  of the Agents’ business operations.     48.  Agents are labeled as “independent contractors” in the Agreement, but Farm  Bureau fails to disclose its extensive collection of written and unwritten policies and procedures  that Insurance Agents are required to comply with as a condition of their continued employment.   49.  These policies and procedures provide Farm Bureau with almost total control over  the Insurance Agents’ business operations.   50.  When Insurance Agents do not follow a Farm Bureau policy or procedure, whether  disclosed or undisclosed, known or unknown, Insurance Agents are subject to discipline by Farm  Bureau, including termination.    52.  The Insurance Agents are economically dependent on Farm Bureau for wages,  continued employment, advertising materials, required computer equipment and software to  access approved insurance brokerages when providing quotes, and obtaining training to comply  with the company’s extensive rules and regulations.   54.  At all times relevant, Farm Bureau asserted control and dominion over virtually  all aspects of Plaintiffs’ and the Class members’ businesses.     55.  At all times relevant, Farm Bureau and its Agents enjoyed a continuing  employment relationship unlimited in time period where both Farm Bureau and its Agents had  the right to terminate the employment relationship.   56.  At all times relevant, Farm Bureau Insurance Agents were integrated into Farm  Bureau’s business of selling insurance.   57.  Nonetheless, Defendants misclassified and continue to misclassify Agent-  employees as independent contractors.   59.  Farm Bureau also hires “agency managers” or “market managers” to recruit and  solicit new Insurance Agents.   60.  These independent contractors receive “overrides” (a commission based on an  underlying sales commission) for each insurance sale made by the Insurance Agents they bring  into the Farm Bureau enterprise. Thus, the more Insurance Agents recruited into the Farm Bureau  enterprise, the more the agency manager and Farm Bureau make in revenue and overrides.   61.  The override paid to the agency manager or market manager is a form of sharing  profits between Farm Bureau and the agency manager or market manager, who is an independent  contractor.   62.  Farm Bureau, however, considers the agency managers and market managers to  be independent contractors, not employees.    63.  To properly classified employees, Defendants also provide benefit plans that are  and were unavailable to Plaintiffs and Class Members due to the misclassification as  “independent contractors.”   64.  If Plaintiffs and Class Members had been properly recognized as employees  during their terms of service, they would have received superior insurance, retirement, disability,  and other employee benefits from Defendants.   65.  Farm Bureau has for decades maintained that its Insurance Agents, including  Plaintiffs and Class Members, are independent contractors—even when agents challenged that  designation.    67.  Plaintiff brings this action as an individual case and as a class action pursuant to  Rule 23(a), (b)(2) and (b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Class is defined as “all  signatories to a Farm Bureau Agent Agreement as ‘the Agent’ or ‘Registered Representative’  during the Class Period,” as further defined and limited below (the “Class”).   68.  The “Class Period” is the time period beginning on the date established by the  Court’s determination of any applicable statute of limitations, after consideration of any tolling  and accrual issues, and ending on the date of entry of judgment.   69.  Subject to additional information obtained through further investigation and  discovery, the Class definition may be expanded or narrowed by amendment or amended  complaint. Specifically excluded from the Class are Defendants and their officers, directors,  agents, trustees, parents, children, corporations, trusts, representatives, employees, principals,  servants, partners, joint-venturers, or entities controlled by Defendants, and their heirs,  successors, assigns, or other persons or entities related to or affiliated with Defendants and/or  their officers and/or directors, or any of them, the Judge assigned to this action, and any member  of the Judge’s immediate family.   72.  Typicality. Plaintiff’s claims are typical of the claims of the Class members in  that Plaintiff and each member of the Class is or has been an “agent” pursuant to a Farm Bureau  Agent Agreement, and each has suffered and will continue to suffer financial hardship and other  damages as a result of Defendants’ misconduct.   73.  Adequacy of Representation. Plaintiffs will fairly and adequately protect the  interests of the Class members. Plaintiffs have retained counsel experienced in complex class  action litigation, and Plaintiffs intend to prosecute this action vigorously. Plaintiffs have no  adverse or antagonistic interests to those of the Class.   75.  Plaintiffs restate and re-allege the above paragraphs as if fully set forth in this  cause of action.  The Farm Bureau Enterprise (the “FBE”)   76.  Plaintiffs, each member of the Class, and each Defendant are “persons,” as that  term is defined in 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961(3) and 1962(c).   77.  For purposes of this claim, the RICO “enterprise” is an association-in-fact  enterprise, as the term is defined in 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961(4) and 1962(c) and Tenth Circuit case law,  that consists of the six Defendants:  (1) FBL Financial Group, Inc.;   (2) Farm Bureau Financial Services;   (3) Farm Bureau Property & Casualty Ins. Co.;  (4) Farm Bureau Life Insurance;   (5) FBL Marketing Services, LLC; and   (6) Western Agricultural Insurance Company,   plus the Agency Managers, Market Managers, District Sales Managers that Defendants use to  recruit other Farm Bureau Insurance Agents by paying them “overrides” for the sales made by the  Insurance Agents they solicit and bring on board to Farm Bureau (collectively, the “Farm Bureau  Enterprise” or “FBE”).   79.  Not all members of the FBE are named as Defendants. Some members of the FBE  might have been trapped by the Defendants into participating in the recruiting activities designed  to further the FBE. Even so, each member of the FBE participated in the affairs of the enterprise  and helped to perpetuate and further the reach of its tentacles into the market for insurance agents  looking for a rewarding career.    80.  But for the recruiting activities of Farm Bureau’s Agency Managers and Market  Managers (which it calls independent contractors), the enterprise-in-fact would have crumbled  because it would not have obtained new insurance agents, which was vital to expand Farm  Bureau’s operations and revenues, which allowed it to recruit and solicit even more agents, and  on and on.   81.  The FBE is separate and distinct from the persons that constitute the Enterprise.   82.  The companies and individuals in the FBE were associated in fact for the common  purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of Plaintiffs and the Class, who were deceived  into signing the Agreement to become Farm Bureau Insurance Agents and were forced to work  under the thumb of Farm Bureau without being afforded the rights of employees, as described  above.   83.  At all relevant times, the FBE was engaged in, and its activities affected, interstate  commerce.    85.  The FBE could not have succeeded if Defendants had not coordinated, worked  together in shared interdependence, and shared profits. By doing so, Defendants advanced the  goals of the enterprise in fact and not simply their own.   86.  The FBE was ongoing and worked together toward a common purpose: to lock  Insurance Agents into a situation where they were financially dependent upon Farm Bureau but  could not modify the conditions imposed by Farm Bureau, and to enrich the members of the FBE  at the expense of the Insurance Agents by refusing to provide all the costs of employment.   87.  All of the Defendants and the Agency Mangers in the FBE worked together and  cooperatively toward this common purpose.   88.  The FBE has operated from at least 2012 to present.    89.  The FBE has an ascertainable structure separate and apart from the pattern of  racketeering activity in which Defendants engage.   The Pattern of Racketeering Activity   90.  At all relevant times, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), the Defendants  conducted the affairs of the FBRE through a pattern of racketeering activity as defined in RICO,  18 U.S.C. § 1961(5), by virtue of the conduct described in this Complaint.    91.  The Defendants have conducted the affairs of the FBE and participated in the  operation and management thereof.   92.  The pattern of racketeering activity consists of ongoing mail and/or wire fraud in  violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343.    94.  In particular, every Insurance Agent was required to sign the Agreement, which  purported to allow the Insurance Agent significant control over her insurance sales business. In  reality, once the Insurance Agent is signed up and dependent on Farm Bureau for a career (each  is an exclusive agent), a different reality unfolded for every Insurance Agent. As explained in the  allegations above, Farm Bureau exercised excessive control, prevented each Insurance Agent  from running her own business, and inflicted the lose-lose-lose dilemma on each Insurance Agent.    95.  Because of the scheme to defraud, each Insurance Agent suffered damage to her  property based on the denial of employment rights and benefits, early termination, being forced  to quit, and in all circumstances, not earning as much as they would have as employees and not  being able to take clients or customers with them once terminated or they had quit.   96.  Each time Farm Bureau induced an Insurance Agent to sign the Agreement, the  Defendants committed mail and/or wire fraud.   97.  It was reasonably foreseeable to the Defendants that the mails and/or wires would  be used in furtherance of the scheme, and the mails and/or wires were in fact used to further and  execute the scheme: the U.S. mails or the Internet was used to transmit the Agreement to each  Insurance Agent and to Farm Bureau, and the commissions obtained by Farm Bureau from the  insurance sales by each Plaintiff and Class Member required use of interstate wires.   VIOLATION OF THE RACKETEER INFLUENCED   AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT (RICO)  