In the present economy, layoffs abound. Just last week major layoffs were announced by Pfizer, Caterpillar, ING Group, Home Depot, Texas Instruments, IBM, Starbucks, AOL, Eastman Kodak and many others. Financial firms Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which have already made significant reductions in their workforces, announced that they anticipate additional layoffs.
It is no wonder, then, that lawsuits by former employees are on the rise. One indicator ? the number of complaints filed with government agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ? rose more than 15 percent last year and is expected to rise even more this year.
The types of lawsuits being filed are varied, as chronicled by Jonathan D. Glater in the January 31 edition of the New York Times. Former Lehman Brothers employees filed suit claiming they were not given the 60 days’ notice and pay before being terminated. Lehman and others may have violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the Warn Act, which requires that employees be given advance notice of layoffs. A complaint by a group of displaced workers who did not get pay for that time led to a Chicago sit-in recently. Suits claiming Warn Act violations have also been filed against Eos, a bankrupt airline, and a pair of law firms that recently folded, Thelen and Heller Ehrman.
Several other ex-employees are trying to bring class-action suits. Terminated employees of Ethan Allen, a furniture retailer, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the company in October. Dell, the computer maker, was sued by former employees for alleged age and sex discrimination that same month. Lockheed Martin was sued in November for allegedly discriminating against veterans.
This is the first significant recession since the early 1980s. Since that time, a number of laws have been enacted that give employee rights to sue ? among them the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the WARN Act, and the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act. Legal experts foresee these and other laws being fully utilized by former employees in the current economic downturn.
Additionally, it is expected that the traditional laws such as Title VII and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act will be more vigorously enforced under the Obama administration than under former administrations. For example, with Obama’s support, Congress last week passed a law overturning a 2007 Supreme Court decision that effectively blocked a sex discrimination claim against Goodyear Tire and Rubber by Lilly Ledbeter. The court ruled she had to bring the case within 180 days of her employer’s initial decision to pay her less than men, even though the facts were undisputed that she did not know of the disparity in pay within the 180 day period.
Page Perry is an Atlanta-based law firm with over 125 years collective experience representing investors in securities-related litigation and arbitration. The firm also has an active practice in representing individuals in employment disputes with brokerage firms. The firm is currently involved in representing several brokers in such disputes. In the past year, the firm has won arbitration award for clients in employment disputes in the amounts of $1.7 and $3.9 million. For further information, please contact www.pageperry.com.