Hornblower Cruises & Events Owed 60 Days’ Notice Prior to Aug. 2020 Mass Layoff, Class Action Says

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A proposed class action alleges Hornblower Cruises & Events violated federal and state worker protection laws when the company failed to provide at least 60 days’ notice prior to firing its workforce in mid-August 2020. 

The 12-page case claims Hornblower, a passenger vessel operator, ran afoul of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and New York State WARN Act by failing to give the laid-off workers as much notice as practicable before their permanent termination on August 17, 2020. The suit contends that Hornblower knew its business was suffering, and that a mass layoff was ultimately on the horizon, when it furloughed employees in mid-March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet failed to provide the workers with at least 60 days’ advance notice. 

The suit chides Hornblower for apparently opting to execute a mass layoff even though Congress made available to the company and many other businesses millions in forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program. 

“Defendant’s failure to provide its employees with any advance written notice had a devastating economic impact on Plaintiff and the putative class members,” the suit says, alleging laid-off Hornblower employees are entitled to recover their respective compensations and benefits for 60 days, “no part of which has been paid.” 

The plaintiff, a former 26-year Hornblower employee, says that after the March 2020 furlough, he was recalled by the company to work for several weeks in July and August. On August 17, the plaintiff received a letter from Hornblower that stated he was being placed on layoff. The case says that hundreds of other Hornblower employees across Illinois, California and New York were terminated without cause. 

According to the complaint, the federal and New York WARN Acts apply to Hornblower given the company employed 100 or more employees, exclusive of part-time workers, who worked fewer than six of the 12 months prior to the date notice was required to be given, or who worked fewer than an average of 20 hours per week during the 90-day period prior to the date notice of the layoff was required to be given. Another threshold for the WARN Acts is a company’s employment of 100 or more workers who worked in aggregate at least 4,000 hours per week exclusive of overtime within the United States, the suit adds. 

New York’s WARN Act requires a company to provide at least 90 days’ notice in advance of a foreseeable mass layoff or plant closing, the case says. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all former Hornblower employees throughout the U.S., including New York, who were not given a minimum of 60 days’ written notice of termination and whose employment was terminated on or about August 17, 2020 as a result of a “mass layoff” or “plant closing” as defined by the federal and New York WARN Act laws. 

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