FL law firm fires 14 employees because they all wore orange

From The Department of Because They Can! Orlando Sentinel:

Four workers tell the story this way: For the past few months, some employees have worn orange shirts on pay-day Fridays so they'd look like a group when they went out for happy hour.

This Friday, 14 workers wearing orange shirts were called into a conference room, where an executive said he understood there was a protest involving orange, the employees were wearing orange, and they all were fired.

The really increasingly excellent Yahoo News gives more detail:

Orange is widely considered to be one of the most visible colors to the human eye. Orange vests are worn by most hunters as a safety precaution and by school crossing guards. Most prisoners are required to wear orange jump suits.

The color orange is arguably Florida's defining color. The self-described "Sunshine State" is widely known for its orange juice exports.

The law offices of Elizabeth R. Wellborn, P.A. [the site is down at of Monday at 4:47PM] offered "no comment" to Sun-Sentinel reporter Doreen Hemlock, but four ex-employees tell the paper they were simply wearing their orange shirts to celebrate "pay day" and the upcoming Friday group happy hour.

"There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing," Lou Erik Ambert told the paper. "I feel so violated."

Ironically, had the employees been wearing orange as a form of protest, it would have been illegal to fire them, ABC News reports.

After the 14 employees were fired, an executive said anyone wearing orange for an "innocent reason" should speak up. At least one employee immediately denied any involvement or knowledge of a protest and explained the happy hour color coordination. Nonetheless, they were still fired.

"I'm a single mom with four kids, and I'm out of a job just because I wore orange today," Meloney McLeod told the paper.

And there's really nothing anyone can do about the terminations since Florida is an at-will state.

Another hell in Florida. Eesh.

NOTE This post is interesting; it details one guy's foreclosure. Wellborn (search the page) makes a brief appearance, allegedly allegedly allegedly Wellborn had “friends at the courthouse” who would “speed your eviction." Is that normal practice? The poster claims this material is on Wellborn's website but, alas, her website is throwing an Error 503 right now (5:01PM). Now, to be fair, I checked 4closurefraud.org without result, so she's not a Stern-level bad actor. Still, interesting, no?