Hooters Sued in Florida Over Mass Firing of Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic

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Two former Hooters employees claim the restaurant chain’s operating company failed to provide mandatory 60 days’ advance notice before terminating nearly 700 employees in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

According to the 10-page lawsuit out of Florida, the plaintiffs and approximately 679 other employees of Hooters III, Inc. were terminated on March 25, 2020 with no advance written notice. The case argues that the defendant “could have but failed to evaluate” the potential consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on its restaurants and employees 60 days before the mass layoff, which the suit says has had a “devastating economic impact” on former workers.

The lawsuit claims that under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, employers such as Hooters are required to provide 60 days’ advance written notice of a “reasonably expected” mass layoff or plant closing that affects more than 50 employees or at least 33 percent of the company’s workforce.

According to the case, the defendant failed to provide “as much written notice as was practicable” during the COVID-19 pandemic, much less an explanation of why employees were provided with “no advance written notice whatsoever.”

Further still, the lawsuit avers that Hooters went ahead with terminating hundreds of employees without notice despite the relief made available to employers under the recently enacted “Paycheck Protection Program,” which aims to grant “millions of dollars” in forgivable loans to businesses such as Hooters.

The lawsuit looks to force Hooters to pay proposed class members—all Hooters employees in Florida who were terminated on March 25, 2020 without proper notice as defined under the WARN Act—60 days’ worth of wages and benefits, including vacation pay, insurance, and 401(k) contributions, as well as any medical expenses incurred in the 60 days following the workers’ terminations that would have been covered and paid under the defendant’s health insurance plans.