Hundreds of employees of a Santa Barbara-based luxury hotel whose furloughs turned into layoffs are demanding some $6 million worth of separation pay.
Due to the tourism stall prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, the Four Seasons Biltmore, a property owned by Beanie Babies tycoon Ty Warner, only employs a handful of its once 450 people who worked in its offices.
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The employees who were permanently let go have received none of the separation pay they have been owed, attorney Bruce Anticouni alleged.
“The goal is to cover everybody,” Anticouni told the Santa Barbara Independent. “If people want to bring their own action, Four Seasons might be confronted with another 150-plus employees who each have their own types of claims. It would be a logistics nightmare for Four Seasons.”
Anticouni plans to go to mediation with the Four Seasons at the end of April to retrieve the money if the hotel agrees to treat the case as a class-action lawsuit.
Typically, a court would determine the demanded fees for roughly a third of what the attorney obtains for a client, but due to the size of the case, Anticouni would accept half the amount, he said.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to the Four Seasons for comment.
