29 U.S.C. § 2101 et seq.
WARN Act: 60 days' notice before a mass layoff, and what happens when it doesn't come
A claim in United States district courts · Last verified August 26, 2026
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act does one thing: it requires a large employer to tell people 60 days before it closes a plant or lays off a large number of them.
The claim has an unusual shape as a result. The missing notice is not a prerequisite to your lawsuit — it is the violation itself. There is nothing to exhaust, nothing to file first, and no agency involved.
And there is no federal limitations period at all, which means the deadline depends on which state you are in.
What the claim is
Your employer ordered a plant closing or a mass layoff and did not give 60 days' written notice.
Affected employees may sue. So may their union on their behalf, and so may a unit of local government — an unusual plaintiff set that reflects who Congress thought the harm fell on.
The recurring disputes are rarely about whether notice was given. They are about coverage: was the employer large enough, were enough people let go, was this a single site, and do layoffs months apart aggregate into one event.
Where the right comes from
Express, and the command is short: an employer
shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice.
A separate section creates civil enforcement.
What a plaintiff has to prove — the thresholds are the elements
There is no discrimination or intent element. The case is coverage arithmetic:
A covered employer — 100 or more employees, excluding those with fewer than six months in the last twelve and those working under 20 hours a week.
A plant closing — a permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site, or a facility or operating unit within one, causing employment loss for 50 or more employees in a 30-day period.
A mass layoff — employment loss at a single site for 500 or more, or for 50 to 499 where that is at least one-third of the active workforce.
Three sub-elements do most of the litigating: what counts as an employment loss, how losses aggregate over 90 days (which stops an employer from staging a large layoff as several small ones), and what constitutes a single site of employment — a question remote work has made harder and that may be developing in the circuits.
How long you have to file
There is no federal limitations period, and the Supreme Court said so directly in North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas. Courts borrow the most closely analogous state statute of limitations, and the Court specifically rejected borrowing the six-month labour-law period some had applied.
So the deadline varies by state, and it can vary a great deal — a state breach-of-contract period may run several years, a state wage-claim period much less. Identify the borrowed period before anything else, because it is the one number this page cannot give you.
What has to happen before you file
Nothing. No agency, no charge, no exhaustion.
Character: the 60-day notice is a substantive element viewed from the plaintiff's side. The employer's failure to give it is the violation. There is no gate to clear and nothing to cure — which distinguishes this from the environmental 60-day notice, where the plaintiff must send the letter and dismissal follows if they do not.
Two statutes, two 60-day notices, opposite structures. Worth keeping straight.
Who can be sued — and who cannot
Covered employers — private for-profit and non-profit businesses of sufficient size.
Quasi-public entities that operate commercially and are separately organised from ordinary government are covered. Ordinary government employers are not. A city laying off municipal workers is outside the Act.
No individual-manager liability.
Successor liability in an asset sale is addressed by the statute itself: the seller is responsible for notice up to the sale, the buyer afterward.
Common defenses — three exceptions, and none of them eliminates notice
The statute supplies three affirmative defenses, each of which the employer must plead and prove:
Faltering company. The employer was actively seeking capital or business that, if obtained, would have avoided or postponed the shutdown, and reasonably believed giving notice would have precluded getting it. This one applies to plant closings only — not to mass layoffs.
Unforeseeable business circumstances. The closing or layoff was caused by circumstances not reasonably foreseeable at the time notice would have been due.
Natural disaster.
All three reduce notice; none removes it. An employer relying on an exception must still give as much notice as is practicable, plus a brief statement of the basis for the shortened notice. An employer that gave no notice at all and then invokes an exception has usually still violated the Act.
Other defenses: not a covered employer, no qualifying employment loss, and the borrowed limitations period.
What the claim pays
Back pay and benefits for each day of violation, up to 60 days — and capped at one-half the days the employee worked for the employer.
Reduced by the employer's voluntary payments to the employee, and by payments made to third parties on the employee's behalf. This is why "pay in lieu of notice" is more complicated than it sounds: such payments may reduce liability, but the mechanics decide how much.
A civil penalty of up to $500 per day runs to the local government, not to the employees — and the employer can avoid it entirely by paying the employees within three weeks.
Attorney's fees to the prevailing party — and note this one is two-way, unlike most of the employment statutes on this site. A prevailing employer can recover fees.
No compensatory or punitive damages beyond the pay-and-benefits measure.
What people get wrong
"Government employees are covered." Ordinary government employers are not.
"The exceptions mean no notice is required." They shorten notice. The employer must still give as much as is practicable and explain why it was short.
"Pay in lieu of notice makes it fine." It may reduce liability, and the offset rules are more complicated than employers assume.
"There's a federal deadline to sue." There is not — the period comes from state law.
"Sixty days is a step I have to take before suing." No. It is what the employer failed to do.
"Small layoffs never count." They can, if they aggregate over 90 days into a qualifying event.
Where it came from
The Act passed in August 1988 and took effect the following February, after a decade of plant closings in which workers routinely learned their jobs were gone on the day they ended. It became law without the President's signature.
The compromise shows in the design: a short notice period, high coverage thresholds, three exceptions, and a damages measure capped at the notice period rather than at the harm.
North Star Steel (1995) is the key Supreme Court decision, and it is about a gap Congress left — having written no limitations period, Congress left courts to borrow one, and the Court held the borrowing runs to state law.
The practical centre of gravity has shifted to the states. Several have their own mini-WARN statutes, and some require 90 days rather than 60 and cover smaller employers. Those statutes drive filing behaviour and often supply the borrowed federal limitations period as well.
Common questions
How much notice must an employer give before a mass layoff?
Sixty days' written notice, if the employer has 100 or more employees and the layoff meets the size thresholds. Several states require more — 90 days in some — under their own statutes.
How long do I have to sue under the WARN Act?
There is no federal deadline. Courts borrow the most closely analogous state limitations period, so it depends where you are. The Supreme Court rejected borrowing the six-month labour-law period.
Do the exceptions mean my employer owed no notice?
No. The faltering-company, unforeseeable-business-circumstances, and natural-disaster exceptions shorten the notice period. The employer must still give as much notice as practicable and explain why it was shortened.
Are government employees covered?
Ordinary government employers are not covered. Quasi-public entities that operate commercially and are separately organised from government can be.
What can I recover?
Back pay and benefits for each day of violation up to 60 days, capped at half the days you worked there, reduced by any voluntary payments the employer made. There are no compensatory or punitive damages beyond that.