Fired Stern Firm Employees File Suit
Four former employees of the Law Firm of David J. Stern and its' mortgage processing company, DJSP, have filed a federal lawsuit claiming they were not given proper notice before being fired.
The employees allege Stern violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which mandates that employers give employees 60 days notice before being terminated.
Attorneys for the employees -- Gary Farmer, Dawn Rapoport and Chandra Parker Doucette -- claim the 700 employees for Stern did not receive that notice.
"These employees didn't do anything wrong," said attorney Gary Farmer. "They were hard workers, showing up on time, doing their jobs and they were unceremoniously cut loose simply because David Stern from the bridge of his yacht decided he didn't need them anymore because his profits were down."
Attorneys Rapoport and Doucette said: "The WARN Act, is specific for companies to provide notice and transition to it's employees in the face of a massive layoff, to reduce the impact for both the employee and the community. We sued David J Stern and his related companies because their employees never got this notice as required under the statute. Sadly, one of the largest Broward county employers, the foreclosure king, put over 800 of his own employees in to the unemployment line and who knows if the next step would be foreclosure for them, just in time for the holidays."
Stern's firm and company are under investigation by the Florida Attorney General's Office, who claim the company mishandled foreclosure cases by robo-signing documents, forging signatures and documents and other abuses.
Attorneys for the employees are asking for the case to be given class action status.
A lawyer representing the Stern law firm had no comment on the lawsuit.
