As manufacturing employers are well aware, the COVID pandemic has forced many employers to furlough or layoff employees. Some operations were closed altogether, while others furloughed employees for various periods of time. Often those layoffs or furloughs were longer than initially anticipated and in some circumstances triggered the WARN Act, requiring the employer to provide the employees suffering job loss with 60 days' notice of their termination. Calculating when and if the WARN Act is triggered can be complicated, especially when there are rolling layoffs. This is especially true in the context of the COVID pandemic when business conditions were changing rapidly. Often COVID related shut downs or layoffs were necessary on short notice and employers did not always have the ability to provide 60 days' notice to the laid off employees. The WARN Act provides for a few exceptions to the notice requirement that excuse non-compliance with the 60 day notice requirement, including a "natural disaster" exception. The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided whether COVID related layoffs qualify as a "natural disaster" under the WARN Act.
In the case,1 the employer was forced to immediately lay off employees when its customers limited production or shut down due to decreased demand related to the COVID pandemic. When the laid off employees bought a lawsuit under the WARN Act, alleging that the employer did not provide them 60 days' notice of the layoff, the employer...
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