Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) Act and similar state “mini-WARN” statutes, employers with 100 or more full-time employees (or 50 or more full-time employees in New York) are required to give 60 (or 90 in New York) days’ notice of certain triggering events, including plant closings and mass layoffs (including furloughs that extend for more than 6 months). While a government mandated closure in response to a burgeoning global pandemic would seem to provide a strong basis to assert a WARN exception, a recent decision in Benson v. Enterprise Leasing Company of Florida, LLC, et al., signals that these WARN exceptions are unlikely to bring a quick end to any litigation. More background on the decision can be found here.
Client Alert – Recent WARN Decision Raises Specter of Protracted Litigation – April 6, 2021
