Laid Off After a Merger in New York? Severance, WARN and Discrimination Rights

On September 21, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James and 11 other attorneys general announced commitments from Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery “to protect film and television industry workers” as the two companies combine: a minimum number of films a year, $1.5 billion of new domestic production, and penalties for missed targets that mostly fund health care benefits for unionized workers. The commitments came out of lawsuits by the states and the Writers Guild of America. They are not a severance promise to any one employee, and the announcement does not mention layoffs.

An employee who loses a job in a reorganization is protected by something else: the federal rules for releasing an age claim, the federal and New York WARN Acts, and the discrimination and retaliation statutes that govern who gets picked. Severance itself is a private agreement, and none of those statutes requires an employer to offer it. Our Long Island wrongful termination lawyer page covers the claims. This post is general information, not advice about any one layoff.

Take a hypothetical. A benefits analyst in Melville, 57 years old, 19 years with a health insurer, learns the insurer has been bought. Nine analysts hold the same title. Four are let go, the analyst among them, and on a Friday the analyst is handed a severance agreement and asked to sign by Monday.

The group layoff release: 45 days, 7 days and the list

What the employer buys with severance is a release. For workers “at least 40 years of age,” the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act sets the floor: “An individual may not waive any right or claim under this chapter unless the waiver is knowing and voluntary,” and a release missing any term listed in 29 U.S.C. § 626(f)(1) “may not be considered knowing and voluntary.”

For a layoff of more than one person, the release must be offered with “a period of at least 45 days within which to consider the agreement,” instead of the 21 days for a single employee. And the employer must hand over, in writing, “the job titles and ages of all individuals eligible or selected for the program, and the ages of all individuals in the same job classification or organizational unit who are not eligible or selected for the program.” The EEOC’s regulation calls the group the list must cover the “decisional unit”: the part of the company from which the employer chose who would go and who would stay. A release of a federal age claim must also allow at least 7 days to revoke after signing. The card below sets out each requirement.

The list is the part people skip, and it is the first thing I ask to see.

When they hand you that severance agreement in a group layoff, look for the list. The list is the list of people who were selected and their ages and the list of people in the same job title who were not selected and their ages. Look at whether the ages are different. If the people that are being let go are older and the people that are not getting laid off are younger, well, that’s probably the issue right there. Don’t sign it the first day. You have 45 days to consider it.

If a group release arrives with no list, or with a three-day deadline, write down the date you received it and keep every page.

What happens when the list is missing

Does an employer that skips the list face a real remedy or just a fine? Section 626(f) imposes no fine and creates no separate damages award for a missing list. It makes the release ineffective to waive the federal age claim.

The Supreme Court decided how far that goes in Oubre v. Entergy Operations, Inc., 522 U.S. 422 (1998). The employee got 14 days to consider the release, no revocation period, and a release that never mentioned the ADEA. She kept the severance and sued; the employer said she had ratified the release and had to tender the money back first. The Court disagreed: “as the release did not comply with the statute, it cannot bar the ADEA claim.” On keeping the money, the Court said “the employer cannot invoke the employee’s failure to tender back as a way of excusing its own failure to comply.” The EEOC regulation agrees, and lets a court reduce a later award by up to the severance paid, never by more than the award (29 C.F.R. § 1625.23).

The Court’s holding is limited to the age claim. The release was unenforceable against her ADEA claim, the Court wrote, “irrespective of the validity of the contract as to other claims.” The same release may still be argued to bar other claims, such as one under the New York State Human Rights Law. A defective list saves the federal age claim; it does not reopen every claim at once.

WARN notice and the right to sue

For any statute, ask whether only an agency enforces it or whether a person can sue for damages. The federal and New York WARN Acts each give the employee a lawsuit.

The federal act requires 60 days’ written notice of a “plant closing” or “mass layoff” from employers with 100 or more full-time employees. New York’s version, Labor Law § 860 et seq., reaches employers with 50 and requires “at least ninety days.” Both address the sale of part or all of a business: the seller gives notice through the effective date of the sale, the purchaser after it, and the seller’s employees are considered the purchaser’s employees immediately after the sale (29 U.S.C. § 2101(b)(1); Labor Law § 860-b(5)).

Under the federal act the employee sues in federal court (29 U.S.C. § 2104(a)(5)). Under the New York act “an aggrieved employee” may “bring a civil action on behalf of the person, other persons similarly situated, or both” (Labor Law § 860-g(7)), and the Commissioner of Labor can also proceed administratively.

So WARN is a notice law, which means that if the employer should have given notice and didn’t, then under the federal statute or the New York statute, an employee can sue for back pay and benefits up to 60 days, and that is not severance. It has nothing to do with why you were picked. The discrimination claim is a different issue.

One limit on that: wages the employer paid for the violation period, and voluntary payments it was not legally required to make, reduce what WARN owes, so a voluntary severance payment can offset it (29 U.S.C. § 2104(a)(2); Labor Law § 860-g(4)).

The two statutes side by side:

Not every merger layoff is covered. The thresholds are counted at a single site, part-time employees are excluded, and New York does not count a job loss as an “employment loss” when, in a relocation or consolidation, the employer offers a qualifying transfer with no more than a six-month break (§ 860-a(2)). An employer that gave proper notice owes nothing under WARN. Ask for the notice in writing and compare its date with your last day.

How employees are picked for layoff

The claim with real value is usually about selection: why this person and not the one at the next desk. New York’s Human Rights Law bars an employer from discharging an employee “because of an individual’s age” (Executive Law § 296(1)(a)), protects workers “eighteen years of age or older” (§ 296(3-a)(a)), and reaches “all employers within the state” (§ 292(5)).

This is how I explain selection to people who ask.

And a lot of times what you will see is that they’ll eliminate a position, right? So if there’s only one in the whole company, then it becomes a lot easier because then there’s no comparison to be made. But generally when there are lots of people with the same title, then they kind of pick and choose who they want to fire or lay off. And that’s where it gets dicey. So if the reason that they give is that they’re paying too much for the person that got let go, and you look at who was cut and who wasn’t cut, right? And they’re about the same age, then the age argument is not going to fly for the employee. So it’s always a matter of whether or not there’s some protected class issue.

Pay is the hard case. In Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), the Supreme Court held that an employer does not violate the ADEA by interfering with an older employee’s pension benefits that would have vested by years of service: when a decision is “wholly motivated by factors other than age,” the problem the ADEA targets disappears, “even if the motivating factor is correlated with age.” The Court left open an employer that “targets employees with a particular pension status on the assumption that these employees are likely to be older.” That case was about pension status, not salary, but a pay-based cut raises the same question: was pay the real reason or a stand-in for age? New York has its own exception for differentiation “based on reasonable factors other than age” (§ 296(3-a)(d)). Consequently, the case is built from the list. If the cuts track age rather than pay, the pay reason starts to look like a cover.

When the person picked had complained

A reorganization is also a convenient time to drop the employee who raised a problem. Labor Law § 215 bars firing an employee for complaining about conduct the employee “reasonably and in good faith, believes violates” the Labor Law; a court may order reinstatement or front pay, lost compensation, damages and fees, and must award liquidated damages of up to $20,000. Labor Law § 740 protects an employee who disclosed or objected to a practice the employee reasonably believed violates a “law, rule or regulation,” with a jury trial, reinstatement or front pay, lost wages and benefits, fees, a civil penalty, and punitive damages for a willful, malicious or wanton violation. Both claims are brought within two years. A discrimination complaint brings in Executive Law § 296(7) as well. Our employer retaliation attorney page and our post on the retaliation standard since 2019 explain how those claims are proved.

If you objected to something illegal in the months before the layoff, the date of that email matters as much as the date on the severance letter.

What to do before you sign

Most of the work happens in the 45 days. Read which claims the release gives up, ask in writing for the list if it is missing, and if the deadline is shorter than the statute allows, say so in writing.

The clocks below run from the day you get the agreement or lose the job.

Whether to file with the EEOC, the Division or a court is its own decision; our post on choosing between an EEOC charge and a New York lawsuit walks through it.

Back to the analyst in Melville

The analyst does not have to sign by Monday. A group release waives the federal age claim only if the employer allows at least 45 days, so the Monday deadline is itself a warning sign. The list comes next: the titles and ages of the four who went and the ages of everyone in the decisional unit who stayed, at least the five other analysts. If the four are the oldest in the unit, that can be the start of an age claim under the ADEA and the State Human Rights Law. WARN turns on head counts at the Melville site, which the analyst can ask the employer to confirm in writing.

Our severance agreement review page explains what we look for in a release before anyone signs it.

Sources

• 29 U.S.C. § 626, Recordkeeping, investigation, and enforcement (waivers, subsection (f); charges, subsection (d))
• 29 U.S.C. § 631, Age limits
• 29 C.F.R. § 1625.22, Waivers of rights and claims under the ADEA
• 29 C.F.R. § 1625.23, Waivers of rights and claims: Tender back of consideration
• Oubre v. Entergy Operations, Inc., 522 U.S. 422 (1998)
• Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993)
• 29 U.S.C. § 2101, WARN definitions
• 29 U.S.C. § 2102, Notice required before plant closings and mass layoffs
• 29 U.S.C. § 2104, Administration and enforcement of requirements
• New York Labor Law § 860-a, Definitions
• New York Labor Law § 860-b, Notice
• New York Labor Law § 860-f, Powers of the commissioner
• New York Labor Law § 860-g, Violation; liability
• New York Labor Law § 860-h, Civil penalty
• New York Executive Law § 292, Definitions
• New York Executive Law § 296, Unlawful discriminatory practices
• New York Executive Law § 297, Procedure
• New York Labor Law § 215, Prohibited retaliation
• New York Labor Law § 740, Retaliatory action by employers
• NYS Department of Labor, WARN for Businesses
• New York Attorney General, press release of September 21, 2026

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Our age discrimination attorney page covers the claim when the cuts fall on older workers.

If you were laid off in a merger or reorganization and handed a severance agreement, call (516) 750-0595 with the unsigned agreement and any list of titles and ages in hand, or request a free case review.