Thomerson

I. BACKGROUND

This dispute arises from Velarde’s employment with defendant Covercraft Industries, LLC (“Covercraft”) as a sales management employee. Within the past several years, Covercraft was acquired by private equity hedge funds—first by Century Park Capital Partners and more recently by Audax Private Equity (“Audax”). Relevant to this suit, Audax installed defendant Jasbir Patel (“Patel”) (together with Covercraft, “defendants”) to lead its management takeover team after the acquisition with the

1 Unless otherwise indicated, the facts are taken from the complaint. ECF No. 1, Compl. 2 Velarde’s complaint describes Audax as being based in Boston and San Francisco and working as a leading middle market investment firm that uses a “disciplined buy-and-build approach.” Compl. ¶ 7. purpose of overhauling the company and increasing the company’s value in a future sale. One strategy used was to reduce the cost of the Covercraft payroll by instituting a mass layoff of Covercraft employees (the “Private Equity Layoff Strategy”). On March 1, 2023, defendants called each of the plaintiffs,3 and, in some cases, followed up with an

email, to inform them that their employment…