1. Did either Alden or Bates have the 100 employees necessary for the WARN Act to apply?
2. Were the shutdowns caused by “business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable” as of the time notice would have been required?
3. What are the damages owed the employees who did not receive notice?

[Sixty days prior to the plant closing at Alden Corrugated Container Corporation, the plant employed some 51 workers and Bates Corrugated Box Corporation employed some 93 workers 60 days prior to the Bates plant closing. The companies were interconnected, sharing certain officers and directors, and stock of both companies was owned by a common holding company, Alden Holdings Corporation. The companies did not believe that a WARN Act notice was required because neither company employed 100 employees 60 days prior to the plant closings. The United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) believed that collectively the companies formed a "single business enterprise" under the Act and that notice was required.]
COLLINGS, U.S.M.J….
There is no dispute that the closings of the Alden and Bates Plants constitute plant closings under § 2101 (a)(2) of the Act in that each was a permanent shutdown of a single site as a consequence of which over fifty employees suffered the loss of employment. However, in order to establish both the applicability of the WARN Act and the defendants' liability thereunder, the plaintiffs must prove that Alden and Bates were "employers" as defined by § 2101(a)(1) of the statute, i.e., that they were business enterprises that employed one hundred (100) or more employees.…
Considering the factors set forth in the WARN regulations, the plaintiffs have proven that defendants Alden Holdings, Alden and Bates were a single business enterprise.
To summarize, a conclusion in favor of the separateness of defendants is reached under state common law. However, when the tests predicated on federal law are applied, Alden Holdings, Alden and Bates must be deemed to be a single business enterprise.
Given these disparate results, it is important to bear in mind that the WARN Act,
… like other federal labor statues, has as its goal the protection of workers, and therefore, the single employer test and the factors enumerated in the D.O.L. regulations, which echo and expand the single employer test, are persuasive.
Local 397 II, 779 F.Supp. at 800.
Consequently, Alden Holdings, Alden and Bates are found to be a single business enterprise. Together, their aggregate number of workers surpasses the minimum number of employees required for the provisions of the WARN Act to apply. As a matter of law, Alden Holdings, Alden and Bates were a single employer and, as such, are liable for the established violations of the WARN Act.…
An employer found to have violated the WARN Act shall be liable to each aggrieved employee for back pay for each day of violation as well as benefits under an employee benefit plan. 29 U.S.C. § 2104(1). Given that no notices were provided in these cases, liability is calculated based on the maximum allowable period of violation, i.e., sixty days. Id.
The amounts of back pay and benefits are the subject of stipulation by the parties. Based on an eight hour day, the collective daily pay of the twenty-four Union members who were terminated by Alden in the Alden Plant closing was one thousand eight hundred seventy-six dollars and fifty-six cents ($1,876.56) (Stip. [f]) The collective daily pay multiplied by the sixty-day period of violation equals one hundred twelve thousand five hundred ninety-three dollars and sixty cents ($112,593.60). The value of sixty days of benefits for these same Union members is twelve thousand eight hundred ninety-six dollars and eighty-eight cents ($12,896.88).
The total amount of collective daily pay and employee benefits for the members of Local 996 laid off and/or terminated at Bates for a sixty-day period is four hundred eighty-six thousand, three hundred ninety-six dollars and ninety-two cents ($486,396.92). The value of sixty days collective pay and employee benefits for the eleven nonunion Bates employees terminated when the Bates Plant closed is ninety-five thousand eight hundred fifty dollars and thirty-eight cents ($95,850.38).