Fanatics Employees Say Company Violates Mass Layoff Laws

A former Fanatics employee has filed a class action lawsuit accusing the company of violating mass layoff laws.

Plaintiff Olga Calero, a Fanatics employee for 16 years, filed the class action lawsuit in federal court in Florida. Calero claims Fanatics violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) by terminating employees without sufficient advance notice in writing.

Through her class action lawsuit, Calero is hoping to recover back pay and benefits “to redress a common course of conduct by Defendants” that led to the termination of hundreds of Fanatics employees without proper legal notice during a series of mass layoffs.

Calero says the mass layoffs of Fanatics employees deprived herself and Class Members of transition time to adjust to the prospect of losing their job and seek alternative employment or skills training.

According to the class action lawsuit, the company failed to provide Fanatics employees with the required 60 days’ advance written notice before termination.

“Due to COVID-19, Defendants will likely claim exemption from this requirement under the ‘unforeseeable business circumstance’ exception of the WARN Act,” the class action lawsuit notes.

However, Calero maintains that even in light of that exception, the WARN Act still mandates that the defendants were to give “as much notice as practicable.” The class action lawsuit notes that Fanatics “failed to do so here, giving [Calero] only four days’ advance written notice of her termination.”

The plaintiff says the WARN Act’s “crucial date” is not the date the company knows a mass layoff is coming or when it identifies which employees will be terminated, but rather “the date when a mass layoff is ‘reasonably foreseeable.’”

Calero believes the defendants likely knew in late March or early April that a mass layoff of Fanatics employees was “reasonably foreseeable.” The company instituted furloughs around March 20.

However, rather than notifying the plaintiff and Class Members, furloughed Fanatics employees were led to believe, through various emails, that they would soon be allowed to return to work. 

Calero says this belief caused her not to seek alternative employment because she assumed she and other Fanatics employees would be returning to work.

She adds that she received written notice from human resources for the first time on Aug. 24 that she would be terminated, effective Aug. 28.

According to the class action lawsuit, the notice failed to comply with WARN Act requirements.

The notice did not include “the name and address of the employment site where the plant closing or mass layoff will occur,” nor did it include the phone number for a company official affected employees could contact for further information.

“Not only that,” the class action lawsuit says, “the notice fails to include a specific ‘…statement as to whether the planned action is expected to be permanent or temporary and, if the entire plant is to be closed, a statement to that effect.’”

It also did not include the job titles of the affected positions or the names of the workers holding those jobs, the complaint says.

Calero says Fanatics’ decision to terminate her employment was “devastating” because she had worked for the company for so many years. 

The Fanatics class action lawsuit seeks a finding against Fanatics equal to the sum of wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued vacation and personal days pay, for 60 days; pension, 401(k) contributions, health insurance and other benefits for 60 days; and medical expenses incurred during the 60 days following the employees’ respective terminations.

Calero also seeks attorneys’ fees, court costs, interest and any other relief the Court deems appropriate. 

Were you let go during a round of mass layoffs? Did you receive sufficient notice? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

The plaintiff is represented by Brandon J. Hill and Luis A. Cabassa of Wenzel Fenton Cabassa PA.

The Fanatics Employees Mass Layoff Laws Violation Class Action Lawsuit is Olga Calero v. Fanatics Inc., et al., Case No. 8:20-cv-02114, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

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