LLNL Pays $37.3M to Settle Lawsuit from Laid-Off Workers

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is paying a group of former employees $37.25 million in contract damages to settle a lawsuit in which 130 workers claimed they were unfairly laid off in 2008, the lab announced yesterday. 129 of the claims were resolved in the settlement, while one plaintiff did not settle, the lab said. The lawsuit followed a “workforce restructuring” in 2008 as a result of cuts in federal funding. The claims of five “test plaintiffs” were litigated in two trials in 2013; one trial alleged a “breach of the plaintiffs’ employment contracts,” while a later trial “alleged that the Laboratory had discriminated against older employees in making layoff decisions.” The five plaintiffs were awarded $2.73 in damages in the first trial, but their age discrimination claims were rejected in the second. LLNL said “the parties engaged in a months-long mediation” that led to the settlement, and denied “any wrongdoing in connection with the circumstances underlying the work force reduction.” Neither party will comment on the case for a five-day period.