North State Aviation Violated WARN Act with Terminations, Lawsuit Claims

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A John Doe plaintiff has filed a proposed class action alleging defendant North State Aviation, LLC violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act by terminating 345 employees at its Winston-Salem, North Carolina plant without first providing adequate notice to the workers. The lawsuit seeks 60 days’ pay and benefits for proposed class members, as well as civil penalties for the defendant.

The case notes the plaintiff, who started as an aircraft inspector at North State Aviation in April 2013, and proposed class members were fired by the defendant on March 22, 2017. On that same day, the defendant allegedly filed a WARN Notice with the North Carolina Department of Commerce indicating the day of the terminations, which the company’s CEO reportedly said were the result of an “unforeseeable significant downturn in business.”

According to the lawsuit, terminated North State Aviation employees were entitled to WARN Act protections and benefits because the company, under the law, engaged in a “mass layoff” that affected at least 50 workers, or at least 33 percent of the business’s workforce.