The Messenger was sued for alleged WARN Act violations

Just one day after The Messenger shut down, the digital news site was sued by a former employee who alleged the company didn’t comply with laws that grant protections to workers affected by layoffs.

Pilar Belendez-Desha, who was a producer for the site, sued on behalf of herself and the roughly 300 employees who were laid off when The Messenger shut down, according to a complaint filed on Feb. 1 in a US District Court in New York.

The complaint alleges The Messenger violated both federal- and state-level Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) laws, which require employers to give employees advance notice when they plan to conduct layoffs.

Why laid-off journalists are suing. The Messenger launched less than a year ago with $50 million in funding. Jimmy Finkelstein, its founder, had previously owned The Hill and co-owned publications including the Hollywood Reporter and the New York Daily News, and aspired to create “an alternative to a national news media” free from partisan influence, the New York Times reported last March.

The site quickly burned through cash, and by Jan. 4 the Times reported The Messenger had generated only $3 million in revenue, and had just $1.8 million in cash on hand. On Jan. 31, Finkelstein wrote an email to staff informing them the site would shut down “effective immediately.” All content was wiped from the site, and laid-off employees weren’t given severance, Axios reported.

The complaint filed by Belendez-Desha alleges none of The Messenger’s employees “received written notice of their terminations prior to January 31, 2024.”

Former employees allege the company violated the Federal WARN Act, which requires organizations with 100 or more employees to give at least 60 days’ advance notice if they intend to conduct a mass layoff affecting at least 50 workers, or 33% of the workforce. They also allege The Messenger violated New York’s WARN Act, which requires 90 days’ advance written notice for layoffs affecting 25 or more full-time employees, and applies to companies with 50 or more employees.

Belendez-Desha and her colleagues are seeking “to recover up to 60 days wages and benefits," from The Messenger, according to the complaint.

The Messenger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zoom out. There are some exceptions to the federal WARN Act. Workers can sometimes skirt the obligations if they believe “in good faith” that doing so could make investors nervous and thus harm their business, HR Brew previously reported. They may also be exempted if they offer at least 60 days of severance pay to departing workers, or argue the layoffs were prompted by an “unforeseeable business circumstance,” such as a natural disaster.

Still, mounting layoffs can intensify scrutiny surrounding compliance with WARN. The number of complaints alleging WARN violations rose in 2022 and 2023 as more companies started to conduct mass layoffs, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.

Many media companies conducted layoffs in January even as overall job growth was strong; more than 500 journalists at outlets including the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, and Time magazine lost their jobs.