It’s been two years since workers moved more than 170 residents out of a north St. Louis nursing home overnight after owners reportedly ran out of money to pay employees.
The Northview Village employees are still waiting for compensation.
The chaotic scene that took place just before Christmas 2023 drew national attention – health workers from other area nursing homes began hastily evacuating Northview Village’s 174 residents overnight in a rushed closure that continued into the early morning.
A state report that recounted the facility’s final hours found the closure endangered the safety of workers and residents.
A federal judge has now said that the owners also broke federal law when they laid people off without proper notice, and that those workers are owed more than $1.9 million in damages.
At the time of closing, approximately 184 people worked there, according to court documents. Carolyn Hawthorne, a registered nurse who worked at Northview, brought the suit on behalf of herself and other workers. She says the owners owe it to them to pay up.
“Without nurses, without CNAs, housekeepers in the health care field, what would they be?” she said. “They're creating generational wealth for their families but destroying ours in the process.”
Northview Village had violated the WARN Act, the judge found. The law requires most large employers to give 60 days' notice before mass layoffs.
St. Louis attorney Chris Grant, one of the lawyers working for Hawthorne and the other workers, said that just because a judge rules that employees are entitled to damages doesn’t mean the money immediately appears.
It’s possible getting Northview’s out-of-state owners to pay will require more legal action, he said.
“In some cases, the employer will voluntarily pay in order to avoid the process of collection,” he said. “But generally or otherwise, the plaintiffs have to seek collection against the assets of the defendant.”
Federal documents indicate two families tied to Chicago addresses, the Rothners and the Suissas, owned the majority of Northview Village, partly through trusts.
Listed owners Mark Suissa and Eric Rothner did not respond to requests for interviews.
Welby granted a request for a default judgment in the workers’ favor after the former owners dropped their attorneys and did not hire new legal counsel.
“I can confirm they are difficult to track down, but that we intend to track them down,” Grant said.
Suissa and Rothner have been associated with several other nursing homes in Illinois.
According to local news reports, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has hit Suissa and other owners of Salem Village in Joliet with a lawsuit that claims they owe workers back pay after that business shut down in 2024.
Said Hawthorne, “You can’t just treat people any kind of way.”
