Marques

Plaintiffs, seasonal and year-round lettuce harvesters, who were formerly employed by Telles Ranch, Inc. (“TRI”), brought this action against TRI under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN”). 29 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2109 . They each received a letter on November 29, 1991, informing them that TRI was discontinuing its lettuce harvesting operations. The subclass of seasonal employees, who normally would have been on an off-season layoff from November to April, claim that they suffered an employment loss in November, 1991, when they received the letter. They contend that TRI did not provide them with the 60-day notice that WARN requires before a loss of employment resulting from a plant closing or mass layoff.

Plaintiff employees filed this as a class action under WARN. The district court certified the action as a class action. 1 It later, at plaintiffs’ request, certified two subclasses within that class:

The district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of TRI, finding that the subclass of seasonal employees suffered an employment loss in April, 1992, when TRI failed to plant the crop for the next season’s harvest; therefore, that they received…