Employers must comply with federal and state laws on alerting employees about impending layoffs, but the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work are making compliance more difficult. Appellate court rulings, changes in state law and district court rulings all are coming into play.
Federal Appellate Court Ruling
On June 15, a federal appellate court ruled that the COVID-19 pandemic is not a natural disaster that would relieve employers of their duty to give adequate warning before mass layoffs. In Easom v. US Well Services, former employees filed a class-action lawsuit after the company laid them off in 2020 without giving 60-days' notice.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) requires employers with 100 or more full-time workers to provide written notice at least 60 days before implementing a plant closing or mass layoff, unless the layoff is a direct result of a natural disaster or unforeseeable business circumstances.
The court found that the COVID-19 pandemic did not qualify as a natural disaster because Congress did not include words like "disease," "pandemic" or "virus" in the statutory language of the WARN Act. The court did not address the extent to which the "unforeseeable business circumstances" exception to the notice rule is available for COVID-19-related layoffs.
The employer bears the burden of proof that an exception has been met under the WARN Act. Floods, earthquakes, droughts, storms, tidal waves...
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