Nearly 200 ex-Borders employees will be getting severance pay of sorts, thanks to a settlement with the now-defunct bookseller.
AnnArbor.com reported that Borders Group Inc., which is in the final stages of liquidating its estate, will pay $240,000 to those who filed a class-action lawsuit. The suit accused the bookstore chain of violating federal regulations regarding large-scale layoffs.
The agreement amounts to $797 per person after legal fees are paid, according to a document describing details of the settlement that was filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
The plaintiffs accused the company of failing to give corporate employees proper notice of their layoffs under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
The report added that Borders claimed it did provide proper notice — and even if it did not, attorneys said Borders was exempted from the WARN Act under a stipulation that allows fast layoffs in the event of “unforeseeable business circumstances.”
Then again, there’s always the argument that the book-/coffee-/DVD-/CD-/general trinket-seller could have seen such circumstances a long time ago.
The Michigan Lawyer 