Skyway Claims Services Hit with Class Action After Abrupt February 2023 Remote Employee Layoffs

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A proposed class action alleges Skyway Claims Services owes 60 days’ pay and benefits to workers terminated without proper advance notice around February 15, 2023. 

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The 12-page lawsuit against the Florida-based insurance company claims the plaintiffs and more than 100 similarly situated remote workers were notified on February 13 that they would be fired without cause, with an effective termination date set for two days later. 

The case alleges Skyway Claims Services, who writes commercial, residential, homeowners’ and flood insurance policies in several coastal states, violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act by failing to provide the individuals with at least 60 days’ advance written notice of the impending layoffs. 

According to the suit, Skyway will “likely claim exemption” from the WARN Act’s notice requirement via the law’s “unforeseeable business circumstance” provision, but the plaintiffs, who worked remotely for the company, contest that the insurer was nevertheless required to give workers “as much notice as is practicable” before firing them en masse. 

“Defendant failed to do so here, instead giving Plaintiffs just a few days advance notice at most,” the filing summarizes. 

The written notices the plaintiffs received from Skyway Claims Services came down via a “separation letter” and additional notices required by remote workers’ various states and/or benefit plans, the case says. However, none of the documents satisfied the WARN Act’s notice requirement, the suit alleges. 

Specifically, WARN Act notices must contain the name and address of the employment site where the mass layoff will occur and the name and telephone number of a company official to contact for more information, the complaint states. The notice must also include a statement as to whether the planned layoff is “expected to be permanent or temporary” and, if the entire plant or jobsite is to be closed, a statement to that effect, according to the case. 

Lastly, the document must also include the expected date of the “first separation” and the “anticipated schedule for making separations,” the job titles of positions to be affected by the layoffs, and the names of the workers currently holding those jobs, the lawsuit shares. 

“To date Plaintiffs have never received a compliant WARN Act notice,” the suit says.

According to the suit, the Skyway terminations at issue resulted in the loss of employment for at least 33 percent of the company’s St. Petersburg, Florida home base, excluding part-time employees. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all former Skyway Claims Services employees throughout the United States who were not given a minimum of 60 days’ written notice of termination, and whose employment was terminated on or about February 15, 2023, or within two weeks of that date, as a result of a “mass layoff” or “plant closing” as defined by the WARN Act of 1988. 

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