A federal district court has held that, under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, fully remote employees do not count as a primary mechanism for establishing a “single site of employment.” None of the federal circuit courts, however, which sit above the district-court level, has squarely resolved the issue in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. Recently, in Dargon v. Xtend Healthcare, LLC (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 31, 2026), a Tennessee federal district court held that Subpart 6, the key regulatory provision addressing workers without a fixed workplace, does not apply to permanently remote, nonmobile workers and dismissed the federal WARN Act claim relating to remote employees.
With a growing split among lower courts and potential legislative reform on the horizon, employers with partially or fully remote-first workforces should heed Dargon but should not treat it as the final word. WARN Act exposure for remote-heavy reductions may still vary significantly by jurisdiction.
The WARN Act requires covered employers to provide 60 days’ advance written notice of certain plant closings and mass layoffs to help communities prepare for large economic shifts. Whether notice is required depends, in part, on whether a sufficient number of employees are terminated at a “single site of employment.”
While the WARN Act sets out numerical thresholds (generally, 50 or more affected...
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