Former employees of recently shuttered Live Well Financial Inc. opened a proposed class Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act complaint Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for Delaware, citing no-notice, mass layoffs in California and Virginia.
Lead plaintiff Monica Williams, a loan account manager at the company’s Richmond, Virginia, headquarters, said she and hundreds of other employees in Virginia and San Diego, California, were fired without warning on May 3.
The two-count lawsuit alleged violations of both the federal WARN Act and its California state counterpart. Both oblige employers to give 60 days’ warning before mass layoffs, although California’s version triggers if 50 or more lose their jobs, while the federal law applies to cuts of at least a third of a company’s workforce or 500 employees.
In both cases, however, workers can sue violators for up to 60 days’ pay.
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The suit seeks damages equal to the unpaid wages, salary, commissions and other compensation for the 60-day period, along with amounts for lost holiday and vacation pay, health and life insurance and retirement-related benefits sum of unpaid wages, salary, commissions, bonuses and accrued holiday pay.
There was no mention of the reasons behind the shutdown in the WARN Act complaint.
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Monica Wiliams and the putative class are represented by Christopher D. Loizides of Loizides PA, and Jack A. Raisner and Rene S. Roupinian of Outten & Golden LLP.
The case is Monica Williams et al. v. Live Well Financial Inc., case number 19-00868, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.