CHICAGO — Irene Luna, a former pastry cook at The Signature Room, had worked at the restaurant near the top of the former John Hancock Center for nearly 30 years.
She was out of a job, along with the rest of her coworkers, when the restaurant shuttered abruptly last fall. Luna was preparing to head to work that September morning, she said, when she received an email stating The Signature Room was closing down.
“It’s not professional,” Luna said, “(to) close to like that.”
After Luna and her coworkers were suddenly laid off, her union, Unite Here Local 1, filed a lawsuit alleging violations of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The law, also known as the WARN Act, requires businesses to give 60 days’ advance notice of certain mass layoffs and closures. If companies are found to have violated the act, they can be required to pay workers back for the wages and benefits they would have received during those 60 days.
The Signature Room’s owners did file a WARN Act notice with the state, but they did so days after the layoffs took place, rather than 60 days prior.
In March, a federal judge ruled that Luna and her former coworkers were owed $1.52 million in back pay and benefits under the WARN Act, an amount which would work out to an average of about $11,500 per former staffer. The ruling was a default judgment because The Signature Room’s parent company, Infusion Management Group, never responded to the workers’ lawsuit.
But Luna and her coworkers haven’t seen a penny. Just weeks after Unite Here filed its WARN lawsuit, Infusion Management filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Bankruptcy law dictates that secured creditors — those whose claims are backed by collateral — get paid first. Unsecured creditors who are also owed money — a category that includes employees — are paid out afterward, but there isn’t always money left to pay them.
Infusion Management’s bankruptcy case closed early this year with the trustee assigned to the case reporting he had not paid out any money on behalf of the estate, according to court records.
Luna, for one, is still looking for a job, but the positions she sees available are often too far away or don’t pay well enough, she said.
If she’d received a payout from the lawsuit back in the spring, Luna said, she could have used the money to help pay off late mortgage payments on her Avondale home — a home she and her husband bought together back in the late ’90s, in part with money she’d earned working at The Signature Room. Now, she feels bad because she can’t help her husband with expenses. She also no longer has health insurance.
“We won and all, but we haven’t seen any of the money,” Luna said in an interview with the Tribune. “So it’s like we didn’t win.”
Former Signature Room workers with Unite Here Local 1 rally on March 28, 2024, outside 875 N. Michigan Ave., the building formerly known as the John Hancock Center, to celebrate that the owner of the restaurant had been found liable and was ordered to pay over $1.5 million in back pay and benefits for violating the WARN Act. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
The Signature Room’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts say The Signature Room workers’ case shows that when companies file for bankruptcy, former employees with WARN Act claims can be left out in the cold — even when a judge has ruled they’re owed back pay.
“Anytime you’re talking about a company that has become insolvent, you are inherently talking about a situation where there’s not enough money to pay everybody what they are owed,” said Brook Gotberg, a law professor at Brigham Young University who studies bankruptcy.
“Everybody agrees they’re owed this money,” she said, “but the reality is there are not enough cookies to distribute to everybody. There is not enough pie.”
Unite Here says it is continuing to seek payment of the $1.52 million a judge said workers were owed. The union has filed citations to discover remaining assets the company could have in Illinois and has registered its WARN Act judgment in Nevada, where it says Infusion Management’s owners reside and own property.
“Infusion Management’s attempt to discharge their debts through bankruptcy failed. The federal judge’s order makes clear that the company is on the hook for their obligations under the WARN Act,” Local 1 President Karen Kent said in a statement to the Tribune. “It is shameful that Infusion Management has failed to comply with the judgment and pay former Signature Room workers what they are owed.”
“Unite Here Local 1 continues to pursue every legal avenue to enforce the federal judge’s order against Infusion Management and seek justice for former Signature Room workers,” Kent said.
Intended to help workers
The WARN Act, which was passed by Congress in 1988, was intended to give workers a head start in finding new job opportunities when they were laid off en masse, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The law applies to businesses with 100 or more full-time employees and excludes certain situations, such as when businesses close due to natural disasters or “unforeseeable business circumstances.”
Illinois also has its own WARN Act, which has slightly different parameters than its federal counterpart and is enforced by the state’s Department of Labor.
The state’s labor department is investigating WARN Act complaints filed by workers who were laid off abruptly from their jobs at Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen & Market in April. The parent company of both brands, Outfox Hospitality, has also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Outfox Hospitality closed Foxtrot and Dom’s so suddenly that some workers found out they were out of their jobs in the middle of their shifts. One worker at Dom’s told the Tribune at the time that in the late morning, “somebody came out of the kitchen and was like, ‘Y’all might as well stop cooking because the store is closing at 12.’”
Foxtrot Market stores in Chicago, including the one at North Avenue and Wells Street, were abruptly and permanently closed on April 23, 2024. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
Former Dom’s Kitchen & Market employees embrace outside the store on Halsted Street at Diversey Parkway in Chicago after the store was abruptly closed and employees were let go on April 23, 2024. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
FAQs provided to former staff in the wake of the closures said they would be paid only through the date the stores close. Three lawsuits alleging violations of the federal WARN Act were swiftly filed in federal court.
Outfox filed WARN Act notices only after the store closures took place, logging 281 layoffs at two North Side Dom’s locations and 66 Foxtrot layoffs at the company’s 167 N. Green St. offices. It was unclear if the Foxtrot notices included workers at the company’s retail stores or its Pilsen commissary.
In the Chapter 7 bankruptcy documents it filed in Delaware, the company estimated that no funds would be available to pay unsecured creditors after administrative costs were paid out.
The Dom’s and Foxtrot WARN Act cases are now in limbo pending the resolution of the Outfox bankruptcy.
Douglas Werman, an attorney representing some former workers in one of the prospective class-action WARN Act lawsuits, said that based on how the bankruptcy case has proceeded so far, it does not appear likely that there will be funds available for the workers.
“As of now, it does not appear that there’s going to be sufficient funds available to pay other creditors,” he said, noting that it is possible the trustee administering the bankruptcy will identify additional funds that should be included.
“I feel that it’s only just for there to be some kind of payback,” said Julia Harlos, who used to work as a barista at a North Side Foxtrot. Harlos found out she was out of her job during her shift on the day Foxtrot shuttered; she said her manager told her and her coworkers to kick customers out of the store and close down immediately.
Some of the coworkers she worked with at her store, Harlos said, are still looking for jobs.
Meanwhile, some Foxtrot stores are expected to begin reopening in the fall.
That became possible when Foxtrot’s assets, including the brand and its intellectual property, were purchased for $2.2 million at auction by New York-based investment firm Further Point Enterprises as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.
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Further Point, which had an early stake in Foxtrot when it was a startup, plans to reopen Foxtrot locations along with founder and former CEO Mike LaVitola, who had been ousted by the company’s board in early 2023. A representative for LaVitola said the new company plans to open about a dozen Foxtrots beginning in the fall, mostly in Chicago.
Experts said it was unlikely that the new Foxtrot could be held liable for any future WARN Act judgments that might be made in favor of former Foxtrot employees.
“It was done free and clear,” said Mark Melickian, a partner at Raines Feldman Littrell in Chicago who has represented both debtors and creditors in bankruptcy cases, referring to the auction of the Foxtrot assets. “It was administered pursuant to the rules of bankruptcy, which may or may not have left anything to pay, for example, a WARN claim.”
An attorney representing Outfox Hospitality in its bankruptcy proceedings did not respond to requests for comment.
“The Illinois Department of Labor investigates and pursues all alleged violations of the Illinois WARN Act, even in situations where recovery may be challenging,” Labor Department Director Jane Flanagan said in a statement. “Our investigation of Foxtrot and Dom’s Market remains open, and we are exploring possible state and federal legal remedies for impacted workers.”
‘It’s like a house that’s underwater’
When a company files for bankruptcy, federal bankruptcy code dictates the order in which their creditors, or the groups and individuals to whom they owe money, will be paid out. Secured creditors — such as a bank that has collateral on its loans — get paid out first. Administrative claims, such as the cost of an auctioneer, come next.
The next bucket of claims are those from unsecured creditors, which include employees. Employee wage claims such as WARN Act claims do have some priority over other unsecured creditors, which could include food and alcohol vendors, but they come after secured creditors.
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy — the kind of bankruptcy The Signature Room filed for — means a company is liquidating its assets entirely.
When companies file for Chapter 7 bankruptcies, experts said, there often isn’t any cash leftover for unsecured creditors, including employees.
“It’s like a house that’s underwater. The lender takes it back, and even if other parties have claims against that house, or the owner of that house, there’s no assets left. It’s just an empty shell,” Melickian said.
Jason Kilborn, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, said that secured creditors need to receive priority in getting paid out because not doing so would have a negative impact on the willingness of banks to lend to businesses.
“Keeping the wheels of commerce greased is extremely important,” Kilborn said.
Gotberg noted there have been some cases in which plaintiffs’ attorneys have attempted to get WARN Act claims classified as administrative claims, meaning the WARN Act claimants would move up somewhat in the line to receive payouts. That area of law is unsettled, Gotberg and Melickian agreed.
Arise Chicago, a workers’ rights group that has helped former food prep employees at Foxtrot’s Pilsen commissary organize in response to the layoffs, said workers should be moved to the front of the line to be paid out during bankruptcy proceedings.
“When employers close without notice and then file for bankruptcy, their low-paid workers who are the least likely to have any savings, are in danger of extreme economic disruption — not being able to pay for rent, medication, or food for their families,” the workers’ group said in a statement. “Putting workers first would help stabilize communities and prevent economic crises for thousands of families.”
Former Signature Room workers protest outside of the closed restaurant’s 875 N. Michigan Ave. building on Oct. 4, 2023. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
A person walks by signage for The Signature Room and Lounge inside a lobby of the 875 N. Michigan Ave. building on May 30, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
Jim P’Pool, who worked as a server at The Signature Room for 17 years, agrees. He loved his work, he said, in particular the comradery he enjoyed with other staff and customers. Like Luna, P’Pool said he found out about the sudden closure via email.
“I was really taken aback,” he said. “I just turned 60. I didn’t think I’d have to be looking for another job at my age.”
Luckily, P’Pool said, he landed on his feet with a job at the Union League Club of Chicago. He’s not struggling, but receiving the payout the judge said he was owed would’ve provided him a cushion to help pay his bills when he was laid off.
“Those creditors will still go on in business,” he told the Tribune. “Us employees, we don’t have a job.”
