Closed
Other Employment: Breach of Contract; Fraud
Settled in 1995 for $16.5 million

In the early 1990s, Maytag began building a new plant in South Carolina to manufacture refrigerated beverage vending machines, which previously had been built only at a plant in Ranson, West Virginia. The company told the approximately 800 West Virginia employees that the South Carolina plant would be supplemental only. Once the new plant came on line, however, Maytag quickly shut down the West Virginia plant and fired the employees there.

In 1993, two lawyers in West Virginia, Paul Taylor and Chris Janelle, brought a class action lawsuit in West Virginia Circuit Court in Jefferson County, alleging that Maytag had breached oral contracts and defrauded the workers. When Maytag brought in the largest law firm in West Virginia in 1995 to head its defense team, Taylor and Janelle turned to Sprenger + Lang. Maytag's attacks on class certification and its motions for summary judgment were defeated, and on the third day of trial Maytag settled for $16.5 million. We believe this to be the only successful plant closing case prosecuted under common law theories.