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Terminated Genova Employees File Lawsuit Against Company

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Former employees of a Paducah-based Genova Products facility filed a lawsuit last week against the company, claiming they weren’t notified far enough in advance of their layoff. The employees were terminated by the pipe manufacturing company after being placed on an indefinite layoff last year. 

Paducah Attorney Wes Sullenger represents the former employees. He claims Genova Products  violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act, by failing to provide a sixty day notice for the impending termination. 

“They didn’t provide notification. In fact they did the exact opposite,” Sullenger said.

Genova Products Operations Director Joseph Pusateri said in a release the company falls under a faltering company exception, which “covers situations where a company has sought new capital or business in order to stay open and where giving notice would ruin the opportunity to get the new capital or business, and applies only to plant closings.”

Sullenger said the exception only applies when companies are actively seeking new credit, and when the issuance of WARN Act notices to employees would jeopardize any impending deals with financiers. He said judges are typically not friendly to this exception.

“That’s generally a tough sell because you have this workforce, and if you gave the workforce notice they would be prepared, which you think would help the purchaser keep things going,” he said. 

Sullenger said cases of this nature usually take around a year to resolve. Genova Products has twenty days to file a response to the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed on February 3.

You can view the full lawsuit below:

Genova Class Action Lawsuit by Dalton York on Scribd

Dalton York is a Morning Edition host and reporter for WKYU in Bowling Green. He is a graduate of Murray State University, where he majored in History with a minor in Nonprofit Leadership Studies. While attending Murray State, he worked as a student reporter at WKMS. A native of Marshall County, he is a proud product of his tight-knit community.
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