WSFA 12 News Montgomery, AL |Laid-off textile workers disappointed over lack of litigation
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October 20, 2009
By Chris Vessell | email
LANETT, AL (WTVM) - Some residents in Chambers County say a major employer left town with their severance and vacation pay. Former West Point Home employees have been seeking legal recourse for months, but now, their attorneys say there's nothing else they can do.
More than 2500 former employees who didn't receive either severance or vacation pay have been seeking legal action against the company with Carpenter, Ingram and Mosholder, LLP. However, they were recently notified by their attorneys that case has taken an unfortunate turn.
The case stems from the transfer of the textile manufacturer West Point Stevens to West Point Home on a August day in 2005. Former employee Jackie Mason had worked for West Point Stevens for more than 30 years.
Mason along with hundreds of others signed documents concerning their previous rights with West Point Stevens. "We received the paper around two o'clock that afternoon. Then we were told we had to sign it before we left that day. We couldn't take it home and let anybody read it. We had to be basically rehired by West Point Home," Mason said.
Mason says she wasn't fully aware of what she was signing. For many, the severance pay they expected to receive, if they were to ever be laid off, never came in the mail after the new company halted production two years later.
"Some people actually did receive severance pay, and some people actually did receive vacation pay, and so that made people think even more, they were being taken advantage of," Attorney Brian Mosholder said. The attorney says he met with hundreds who claimed they did not receive adequate pay.
Mosholder says the departure of West Point Home was legal due to documents former employees signed, and a bankruptcy order filed for by West Point Stevens. However, he says it happens far too often.
"They take them apart, they sell them off, what ever they can get out of it, and the people left holding the bag are these employees that have given their lives to this company and its not right, but under the law everything they did was legal," Mosholder said.
Patsy Adams worked for the textile manufacturer for more than 20 years. "They said if we didn't sign it, we would be fired. In other words we were forced to sign it," Adams said. She says her attorneys advise that most likely no severance pay was due to any rehired employee, because of the sale of West Point Stevens to West Point Home.
A number of other respected law firms looked at the case, including firms in Montgomery and Birmingham.
"Every single one of them had the same feeling we had initially. This is a great case, let's go after this," Mosholder said. "Then the more documents we got, the more we looked at, we came to the same conclusion that there is just nothing more we can do," he added.
Some former employees we spoke to say they still believe they have a case and plan to fight West Point Home. "No its not the end of me, I'm going to keep right on going," Adams said.
