College Operator Faces WARN Act Class Action After School Shutdown

An employee of the now defunct Missouri College is suing its parent company, Weston Educational Inc., under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act claiming the school didn’t give employees a 60-day notice of its closure.

On Nov. 1, for-profit Weston Educational Inc. closed the doors to 10 Heritage College campus locations across the United States in addition to its Missouri College in St. Louis, terminating all employees, allegedly without prior notice.

Plaintiff Brittany Evans says she worked for healthcare-focused Missouri College for the past seven years.

Evans claims she and her colleagues were called into a meeting on the afternoon of Nov. 1 and were told that effective immediately, the school was shutting down and they were unemployed. Employees were reportedly instructed to gather their belongings and go home.

According to Evans, the now-former employees of Weston, herself included, were not given 60 days’ notice of their employment loss or the nationwide closing of Weston and its subsidiaries or affiliates, including Heritage and Missouri College campuses.

“No warning of Weston’s nationwide closing or the November 1, 2016 termination was given by Weston to Plaintiff or other Weston employees prior to the meeting informing Weston employees that they would not have a job the next day,” the lawsuit states.

As a result, Evans is bringing this putative class action lawsuit against Weston under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (the WARN Act) in order to recover unpaid wages she says are owed to herself and to all others “similarly situated due to Weston’s unlawful acts” in this mass termination.

The WARN Act prohibits an employer from ordering a closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves a written notice of closing.

“Upon information and belief, Weston could have given 60-days’ notice but chose not to in an attempt to avoid payment of 60-days’ wages to Plaintiff and Class members,” the class action lawsuit reads.

Evans is seeking to represent a certified Class of “similarly situated Weston employees who worked at Weston, a Heritage College, or a Weston owned college, such as Missouri College, across the United States who were terminated without cause and without proper notice on or about November 1, 2016.”

Accordingly, the lawsuit is asking for 60-days’ back pay and continued benefits for each of the estimated 100 employees who worked for Weston at the time of its closing.

In a statement posted on the colleges’ websites, Weston announced that its permanent closure of its Heritage and Missouri campuses was due to a financial shortfall stemming from declining student enrollment and a decreased demand of for-profit schools.

In May 2015, Weston Educational was ordered by a federal appeals court to defend itself on charges it defrauded the government by altering grade and attendance records in an effort to receive more federal student aid.

The lawsuit claims Heritage failed to keep accurate grade and attendance records, in turn defrauding the federal government out of $32.8 million from 2009 to 2012.

Specifically, the whistleblowers allege the for-profit college committed fraud by signing a federal Program Participation Agreement, or PPA, without intending to maintain the records necessary for receiving federal funds.

The Weston WARN Act class action lawsuit comes a few weeks after one of the largest national for-profit chains, ITT Technical Institute closed 130 campuses, including two in Missouri.

Since the ITT Tech mass shutdown, four class action lawsuits have been filed alleging violations of the WARN Act. These lawsuits have since been included into ITT Tech bankruptcy litigation.

Evans is represented by Brandon M. Wise and Paul A. Lesko of Peiffer Rosca Wolf Abdullah Carr & Kane APLC.

The Missouri College WARN Act Class Action Lawsuit is Brittany Evans, et al. v. Weston Educational Inc., Case No. 4:16-cv-01713, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.