Former employees of First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. are suing the Plano, Texas-based company after it laid off 75% of its staff on June 24 and filed for bankruptcy, and they claim the company also previously terminated hundreds of employees without notice earlier this year, the Dallas Morning News reported. The former employees — Lori Buckley, Gayle Zech, Roberta Martinez, Jennifer Jackson and James Davies — filed a class-action lawsuit against the company June 30 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Some of those employees and several others filed separate, similar class-action suits in U.S. District Courts on June 29. The former employees claim the lender didn’t give them the 60-day layoff notice required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, and they are asking for the 60 days of back pay and benefits required when not giving the notice. First Guaranty “could’ve and should’ve done something more professional. They didn’t,” said Jack Raisner, founding partner of Raisner Roupinian LLP, which is representing the former employees in the bankruptcy case. “For whomever this happens to, it is a life-changing experience. Losing a job like this can be catastrophic.” The June 30 complaint alleges that First Guaranty previously laid off about 300 employees on April 27 without cause and did not file a WARN notice with the state. One of those employees, Davies, was rehired June 7 and terminated again in the mass layoff later in the month, the complaint said. The company began its bankruptcy court hearing on Friday, which allowed the company to borrow funds to continue operations while in bankruptcy, Raisner said. It is not yet known whether the company plans to sell or reorganize in some other way.
