Federal Ruling Offers WARN Act Guidance for Employers With Remote Workers

A federal court in Florida recently ruled that since a company’s remote employees did not work at a single site of employment, they were not entitled to a written notice of termination under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act). As the first court in the Eleventh Circuit to address this issue, the decision offers important guidance on employers’ WARN Act notice obligations to remote employees.

The plaintiffs worked remotely for their employer, without assigned offices. They were not required to report to a fixed physical location and reported to supervisors who also worked remotely.

The company kept a mailing address at its “headquarters” in Chamblee, Georgia, and an office space at the St. Augustine, Florida, airport. The company maintained that both locations were generally unmanned or were never used by more than 10 employees at a time.

When the company terminated at least 200 employees, including the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs sued, alleging that the company violated the WARN Act by failing to provide them with a 60-day written notice of termination for a mass layoff.

The central issue the court discussed was whether the employment loss occurred at a “single site of employment,” a prerequisite to trigger the notification requirements of the WARN Act. The WARN Act relies on the definition of “site of employment” promulgated by the Department of Labor (DOL). Subsections (6) and (8) of the definition note that:

"Single site of employment can refer to either a single location or a group of contiguous locations."

"For workers whose primary duties require travel from point to point, who are outstationed, or whose primary duties involve work outside any of the employer's regular employment sites (e.g., railroad workers, bus drivers, salespersons), the single site of employment to which they are assigned as their home base, from which their work is assigned, or to which they report will be the single site in which they are covered for WARN purposes."

"The term 'single site of employment' may also apply to truly unusual organizational situations where the above criteria do not reasonably apply."

The plaintiffs argued that they should be treated as working at the company’s Georgia headquarters, acknowledging that no employees were assigned to, or worked out of, that office. The court analyzed the regulation and identified several reasons why the plaintiffs could not satisfy the prerequisites for WARN Act protection. The following principles emerge from the court’s analysis.

1. Remote Work Does Not Make Travel a Primary Duty of Employment

The plaintiffs argued that subsection (6) governs employees without a fixed place of work, including remote workers who can work from any location. The court disagreed. It found that the plaintiffs' primary duties did not "require travel from point to point," because "all employees were fully remote and could work anywhere." An employee's ability to work from anywhere does not, by itself, make travel a primary duty of the job.

2. Remote Workers Are Not “Outstationed” Employees

The court also concluded that remote workers are not "outstationed." In the court's words, remote workers "can theoretically work from wherever they open their laptop" and "are not outstationed to a particular location." To be outstationed, an employee must be tied to a particular location, and the plaintiffs were not.

3. Remote Workers Are Not “Truly Mobile Workers”

The court further found that the plaintiffs did not fall into the category of workers "whose primary duties involve work outside any of the employer's regular employment sites." Although the plaintiffs did not work at any regular company site, the court reasoned that this was because the company had no regular employment sites.

More importantly, the court held that subsection (6) covers only "truly mobile workers," meaning workers whose duties require travel. The regulation's examples (railroad workers, bus drivers and salespersons) describe jobs "characterized by travel and mobility." The court agreed with other district courts that the provision applies only to workers who travel routinely as part of their professional responsibilities, not to remote workers who telecommute. The plaintiffs had no obligation to travel to or work from any specific location, so they fell outside this category. 

4. Remote Supervisors and Shared Corporate Purpose Do Not Create a Common Worksite

The court held that even if the plaintiffs had been mobile workers, the company’s headquarters still would not be their site of employment. To find where employees report or receive their work assignments, the court looked to where day-to-day operational decisions are made, not where centralized payroll or personnel functions occur. That meant looking to the plaintiffs' supervisors. Those supervisors worked remotely and each oversaw 47 or fewer employees. No supervisor operated from headquarters.

The court also rejected the argument that employees "working toward the same operational purpose" share a worksite. Operational purpose matters only when deciding whether non-contiguous sites in the same geographic area form a single site.

5. Remote Work Does Not Create an "Unusual Organizational Situation"

Finally, the plaintiffs invoked subsection (8), arguing that the company’s structure could not have been anticipated when the WARN Act was enacted. The court started from the statute's plain language. It concluded that "site" must refer to a physical location. It also found that the WARN Act's provisions were intended to provide relief to the specific geographic area where terminated employees reported or performed their work, making geographical proximity the touchstone in what constitutes a single site. Applying the plaintiffs' reading would cover essentially any business with enough employees, wherever they work.

Practical Takeaways for Employers

This decision gives helpful guidance to employers with remote or distributed workforces. Practical takeaways include:

• • Fully remote employees may fall outside the WARN Act.
  • A mailing address or nominal headquarters may not be a common worksite if employees do not work there or are not supervised from there.
  • Know which office locations could count as a worksite. The company won partly because its Georgia mailing address and St. Augustine office were generally unmanned or never used by more than 10 employees at a time.
  • Don't treat centralized HR or payroll as creating a worksite, but don't overlook it either. The court said centralized payroll and similar managerial or personnel functions do not determine the site of employment. Still, if employees were actually supervised from headquarters, the result could differ. The court stressed that no supervisor or manager operated from the company’s headquarters.

Contact Lillian Wiggins or any member of the Phelps labor and employment team with questions.