Jules Gautier, et al. v. TAMS Management, Inc., et al.

Charleston, West Virginia, employment law lawyers represented the Plaintiffs who sued on a WARN Act violation theory.

The WARN Act “requires certain employers to provide notice to their employees of
sudden, significant employment loss so that they [can] seek alternative employment and
their communities [can] prepare for the economic disruption of a mass layoff.” Schmidt v.
FCI Enters. LLC, 3 F.4th 95, 101 (4th Cir. 2021) (citation modified). The Act states:
An employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until
the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written
notice of such an order . . . to each representative of the
affected employees as of the time of the notice or, if there is no
such representative at that time, to each affected employee.
29 U.S.C. §§ 2102(a), (a)(1).
Generally, the statute’s “scope of liability . . . extends precisely to a company’s own
employees,” but in “some instances distinct businesses may count as the same employer
for purposes of the WARN Act.” Pennington v. Fluor Corp., 19 F.4th 589, 596 (4th Cir.
2021). That happens “where the operational differences between the . . . companies are
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purely formal, so that for all intents and purposes the businesses really do operate as the
same employer.” Id.
An employer that violates the notice provision is liable to employees who suffered
an “employment loss.” 29 U.S.C. § 2104(a). Employment loss means:
(A) an employment termination, other than a discharge for
cause, voluntary departure, or retirement, (B) a layoff
exceeding 6 months, or (C) a reduction in hours of work of
more than 50 percent during each month of any 6-month
period.
Id. § 2101(a)(6).

A jury found five mining companies liable under the Worker Adjustment and
Retraining Notification Act (the “WARN Act”) for not giving their employees notice
before firing them.

Affirmed