Laid-off Vista Window employees sue after closure

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Former employees of Vista Window Co. LLC have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Lordstown window-maker for failing to signal the “faltering” company’s abrupt shuttering earlier this month.

The company laid off 87 employees, the majority of which were production workers, when its 1701 Henn Parkway plant suddenly closed Jan. 14.

A civil complaint against Vista and its co-owner, Maine-based Paradigm Operating Co. LLC, filed Friday in U.S. Northern District Court claims the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires the company to submit notices of mass layoffs at least 60 days in advance. Vista’s notice was filed the day of the plant’s closure.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages in the form of 60 days’ worth of pay and benefits, to which they are entitled under the WARN Act, the complaint states.

“Vista is a faltering company which sought new capital or business in order to stay open and where giving notice would have ruined the opportunity to get the new capital or business,” reads the WARN notice. “For example, last week, two significant customers stopped paying their receivables to Vista.”

A total of about 120 people who worked at the facility were terminated between Dec. 6 and Jan. 16, the complaint states.

In 2010, The Vindicator reported the home-window producer had grown exponentially in the previous four years and was one of the few Mahoning Valley companies to thrive in spite of the economic downturn at that time.