KANSAS CITY, Kan. (Legal Newsline) - A company that failed to perform mass layoffs in accordance with the law and suffered a seven-figure judgment is suing the lawyers that advised it.
The receiver for Moon Ridge Foods sued Houston firm Alaniz Law and Associates on April 5 in Missouri federal court. The suit says Moon Ridge retained Alaniz to advise it how to prepare notices to laid-off employees that would be in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
Moon Ridge operated a hog processing plant in Pleasant Hope but closed in January 2018. A year later, one of the 240 employees who lost their job, Dawn Morris, sued the company for violating the WARN Act.
The suit became a class action, and Morris' lawyers won a motion for summary judgment that netted a nearly $1.3 million judgment in their favor.
"The Court in the WARN Act Litigation held Moon Ridge liable because the WARN Act notice, prepared by the attorneys and distributed by Moon Ridge at the attorneys' instruction, was legally deficient," the suit says.
The court found exceptions in the WARN Act that would have granted Moon Ridge to abruptly perform its layoffs didn't apply. The notice to employees said "Greater notice was not possible due to economic circumstances."