Bader v. Northern Line Layers ( 2007 )


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  •                 FOR PUBLICATION
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    MIKE BADER; TIMOTHY BEARD; PAT      
    BIGGINS; JIM BLAKE; ALISE
    BRADLEY; MARK CHAMBERLAIN;
    ARTHUR L. CLARK; KATHY
    CLEMENTS; JERRY CULLINS; JAMES J.
    DOLAN; ROBERT EMMETT DOLAN;
    CAL DOLMAN; KELLY L. DUBBS;
    JAMES DUMOND; STEPHEN DURFEE;
    ANDREW ESPINOZA; JAY GARRICK;
    RAY GREEN; FRANK GRUBB; CHRIS
    HAYES; BRAD HENDERSON; WILLIAM
    LEE HOLLINGSWORTH; ALLAN
    HUSSER; BRUCE HUTSON; CHRIS              No. 05-36012
    JIMISON; JIMMIE JIMISON; DAVID
    JUNGERT; JENNIFER KELLER; HAROLD          D.C. No.
    CV 03-0085 RFC
    KLUNDT; STEVEN KOYLE, BELINDA              OPINION
    LIVINGSTON; RAY MAIN; DARNELL
    MARCH; DAVID MILLER; VIRGINIA
    MORAN; FARON MORGAN; RICK
    PEDERSON; ANTHONY PIERCE;
    SHAWN POLSTON; AARON RAMAGE;
    JOHN RAMAGE; THERESA REECE-
    SIVERTSON; WILLIS RHEA; GENE
    ROSS; WILLIAM SCHRIVER; TERRY
    SHIPLEY; JOE SMITH; BUDD
    STAEHNKE; JOHN STEPHENS; ARNOLD
    STRAND; TIM TRENT; DARRELL
    WALDO; MICHAEL WAUDBY;
    
    12091
    12092           BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    DEAN WATSON; BERNARD WEHRI;              
    SAMUEL WEYERS; SAM YETLEY;
    JIMMY ZIMMERMAN, and all persons
    similarly situated; ROBERT SMITH,
    JR.; TRACY KELLER; MICHAEL A.
    MORGAN; CRAIG RANG; PAUL
    MCFARLAND; SHAWN LEBAUGH,
    Plaintiffs-Appellants,   
    v.
    NORTHERN LINE LAYERS, INC., a
    Delaware corporation; QUANTA
    SERVICES, INC., a Delaware
    corporation,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the District of Montana
    Richard F. Cebull, District Judge, Presiding
    Argued and Submitted
    August 10, 2007—Seattle, Washington
    Filed September 10, 2007
    Before: Cynthia Holcomb Hall, A. Wallace Tashima, and
    Consuelo M. Callahan, Circuit Judges.
    Opinion by Judge Tashima
    12094         BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    COUNSEL
    Kenneth D. Peterson, Peterson & Scholfield PLLC, Billings,
    Montana, for the plaintiffs-appellants.
    Mark J. Levine, Levine & Associates, P.C., Houston, Texas,
    for the defendants-appellees.
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS             12095
    OPINION
    TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:
    Plaintiffs, former employees of Northern Line Layers, Inc.
    (“NLL”), sought compensation from NLL and its parent,
    Quanta Services, Inc. (collectively “Defendants”), for violat-
    ing the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act,
    29 U.S.C. §§ 2101-2109 (“WARN Act” or “Act”), which
    requires employers to give employees 60 days’ notice in the
    event of a plant closing or mass layoff at a “single site of
    employment.” This case presents the question of whether con-
    struction workers’ “site of employment” is the company head-
    quarters or the workers’ actual work site, under the Act’s
    implementing regulations. We conclude that it is the latter.
    Consequently, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that 50 or
    more laid-off employees worked at a single site of employ-
    ment. We therefore hold that the layoffs at NLL are not cov-
    ered by the WARN Act; consequently, we affirm the district
    court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants.
    FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
    NLL was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quanta Services,
    Inc. (“Quanta”) that provided specialty construction services,
    primarily for telecommunications companies. NLL’s central
    administrative office and maintenance shop were located in
    Billings, Montana, in adjacent buildings. In December 2002,
    NLL also employed construction workers and project manag-
    ers at construction sites in Arizona, California, Colorado,
    Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and
    Wyoming.
    Payroll records show that in August 2002, NLL had 33
    employees working in Billings. Three additional employees
    were associated with the General Administration department,
    but did not work in Billings. The remaining 162 employees
    worked at construction sites located in seven states, each with
    12096           BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    between one and 35 employees. Payroll records from Decem-
    ber 21, 2002, show that there were then 28 Billings-based
    employees, two administrative employees based outside of
    Billings, and 82 employees based at project sites in 10 states,
    with between one and 28 employees at each site.
    All financial accounting was done at the NLL headquarters
    in Billings. This included payment of the vendors and subcon-
    tractors that supplied materials and services at remote con-
    struction projects. Employee time sheets were prepared by
    remote project managers and submitted to company headquar-
    ters in Billings. NLL’s accounting department then collected
    the data and submitted them to an outside payroll services
    company, which generated the checks and sent them back to
    Billings. Payroll checks were then sent from Billings to
    remote job sites for distribution by local project managers.
    Ray Green, the former comptroller of NLL, stated that NLL
    set up field offices to manage the day-to-day operations at the
    individual project sites. These field offices had the authority
    to hire and fire employees as individual project needs dic-
    tated. Green further noted that some employees hired at proj-
    ect sites never came to Montana and that the employees
    working at remote sites were residents of many different
    states or had no permanent residence at all, moving from job
    site to job site. The former president of NLL stated that when
    an individual construction project concluded, the on-site proj-
    ect manager often laid off non-management crew members
    who had worked on that project, without any direction from
    the Billings home office.
    In support of their motion for summary judgment, Defen-
    dants submitted responses to interrogatories from 23 plaintiffs
    who worked at remote construction project locations. These
    plaintiffs were asked, “What is the name of your supervisor
    at your last job alignment [sic] with NLL?” Two plaintiffs
    listed a Billings-based supervisor, and both of these plaintiffs
    were project managers on their respective construction sites.
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS             12097
    Two plaintiffs listed both a Billings-based supervisor and an
    on-site project manager. The remaining 19 plaintiffs listed a
    local project manager as their supervisor. Plaintiffs provided
    no evidence regarding the location of supervisors for the other
    laid-off employees who had not joined the lawsuit.
    A Quanta senior vice president stated that in 2002, the tele-
    communications market experienced an economic downturn,
    which decreased the demand for NLL’s construction services.
    He further noted that NLL suffered significant financial
    losses, and on January 1, 2003, Quanta merged the assets of
    NLL into Par Electric (“Par”), another wholly-owned subsid-
    iary of Quanta. Seventy NLL employees were transferred to
    Par’s payroll in early January 2003; however, by the end of
    March 2003, 58 of them had been laid off. NLL gave no
    notice to the Montana State Dislocated Worker Unit, nor any
    formal 60-day advance notice before laying off any NLL
    employees.
    Sixty-four former NLL employees brought the present
    action, alleging that NLL violated the WARN Act, and some
    of the Plaintiffs also asserted pendant state law wrongful dis-
    charge claims. The parties filed cross-motions for summary
    judgment on the WARN Act claims. The district court granted
    NLL’s motion for summary judgment, finding that NLL’s
    Billings office was not a “single site of employment” for 50
    or more laid-off employees, as required to trigger the WARN
    Act and the implementing Department of Labor (“DOL”) reg-
    ulations. The district court then dismissed the pendant state
    law claims without prejudice to their being brought in state
    court.
    STANDARD OF REVIEW
    We review cross-motions for summary judgment de novo.
    See Arakaki v. Hawaii, 
    314 F.3d 1091
    , 1094 (9th Cir. 2002).
    Summary judgment is appropriate if, viewing the evidence in
    the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there are no
    12098           BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    genuine issues of material fact and if the moving party is enti-
    tled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). We
    review de novo whether the district court correctly applied the
    relevant substantive law. See Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of Med-
    icine, 
    363 F.3d 916
    , 922 (9th Cir. 2004). Whether multiple
    work locations are a “single site of employment” is a mixed
    question of law and fact, which we also review de novo. Wil-
    liams v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 
    23 F.3d 930
    , 934 (5th Cir.
    1994).
    ANALYSIS
    [1] The WARN Act requires employers to provide 60 days’
    notice to employees and to the state dislocated worker agency
    in the event of a plant closing or a mass layoff. See 29 U.S.C.
    § 2102(a). The purpose of the Act is to give advance notice
    to workers and the community so that workers can prepare to
    seek alternative employment and communities can prepare for
    the economic disruption of a mass layoff. 20 C.F.R.
    § 639.1(a); see also H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 100-576 (1988),
    reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2078, 2079. An employer
    who fails to comply with the provisions of the Act is liable to
    each affected former employee for back pay and benefits for
    up to 60 days, as well as attorney’s fees. 29 U.S.C. § 2104(a).
    The WARN Act defines a “plant closing” as the loss of
    employment for at least 50 full-time employees at a single site
    of employment during any 30-day period, as a result of the
    permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site of employ-
    ment. Id. § 2101(a)(2). A “mass layoff” is a similar reduction
    in force that does not result from a plant closing but includes
    the loss of at least 50 full-time employees at a single site and
    at least 33 percent of the total workforce at that site. Id.
    § 2101(a)(3). Plaintiffs submitted payroll records showing
    that NLL or Par, its successor, employed 197 people on
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS                     12099
    August 24, 2002, 109 people on December 21, 2002, 70 peo-
    ple on January 1, 2003, and 12 people on April 1, 2003.1
    [2] The DOL has promulgated a definition of “single site
    of employment” under the WARN Act, and it is this regula-
    tion which guides our principal inquiry:
    (i) Single site of employment. (1) A single site of
    employment can refer to either a single location or
    a group of contiguous locations. Groups of structures
    which form a campus or industrial park, or separate
    facilities across the street from one another, may be
    considered a single site of employment.
    (2) There may be several single sites of employment
    within a single building, such as an office building,
    if separate employers conduct activities within such
    a building. For example, an office building housing
    50 different businesses will contain 50 single sites of
    employment. The offices of each employer will be
    its single site of employment.
    (3) Separate buildings or areas which are not
    directly connected or in immediate proximity may be
    considered a single site of employment if they are in
    reasonable geographic proximity, used for the same
    purpose, and share the same staff and equipment. An
    example is an employer who manages a number of
    warehouses in an area but who regularly shifts or
    rotates the same employees from one building to
    another.
    1
    Defendants, for their part, submitted evidence that there was no 30-day
    period in which there was a layoff of more than 50 employees. The district
    court did not resolve this disputed issue of fact, resting the grant of sum-
    mary judgment on its finding that fewer than 50 were laid off at any
    affected site of employment. We assume, for purposes of this appeal, that
    Plaintiffs can establish that at least 50 persons were laid off over a 30-day
    period between August 2002 and March 2003.
    12100               BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    (4) Non-contiguous sites in the same geographic
    area which do not share the same staff or operational
    purpose should not be considered a single site. For
    example, assembly plants which are located on
    opposite sides of a town and which are managed by
    a single employer are separate sites if they employ
    different workers.
    (5) Contiguous buildings owned by the same
    employer which have separate management, produce
    different products, and have separate workforces are
    considered separate single sites of employment.
    (6) For workers whose primary duties require travel
    from point to point, who are outstationed, or whose
    primary duties involve work outside any of the
    employer’s regular employment sites (e.g., railroad
    workers, bus drivers, salespersons), the single site of
    employment to which they are assigned as their
    home base, from which their work is assigned, or to
    which they report will be the single site in which
    they are covered for WARN purposes.
    20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i);2 see generally 29 U.S.C. § 2107(a)
    (authorizing the DOL to prescribe regulations carrying out the
    Act).
    2
    20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i) contains two other subsections not at issue in this
    case:
    (7) Foreign sites of employment are not covered under WARN.
    U.S. workers at such sites are counted to determine whether an
    employer is covered as an employer under § 639.3(a);
    (8) The term “single site of employment” may also apply to
    truly unusual organizational situations where the above criteria
    do not reasonably apply. The application of this definition with
    the intent to evade the purpose of the Act to provide notice is not
    acceptable.
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS                   12101
    1.       Geographic Definitions of a “Single Site”
    Subsections (1)-(5) clearly do not assist Plaintiffs’ claim.
    Because the Billings office and maintenance shop are contigu-
    ous buildings, they likely qualify as a single site of employ-
    ment under 20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i)(1).3 The total number of
    employees at both sites, however, was never more than 33, an
    insufficient number to trigger the WARN Act. Furthermore,
    no single construction project site had more than 35 employ-
    ees at any one time.
    The remote construction project sites cannot be aggregated
    under 20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i)(3) or (4) because those sites are
    located in many different states and are not “in reasonable
    geographic proximity” or “in the same geographic area.” Cf.
    Teamsters Local Union 413 v. Driver’s, Inc., 
    101 F.3d 1107
    ,
    1109 (6th Cir. 1996) (noting that “[a]lthough no bright line
    test exists, the plain language of the statute and regulations
    makes clear that geographic proximity provides the touch-
    stone in determining what constitutes a ‘single site’ ”);
    Frymire v. Ampex Corp., 
    61 F.3d 757
    , 766 (10th Cir. 1995)
    (interpreting 20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i) as creating a presumption
    against single site status for work locations that are not geo-
    graphically proximate to each other).
    Plaintiffs presented no facts suggesting that any of the NLL
    construction site locations was geographically proximate to
    another such site. Payroll records show that none of the con-
    struction projects was in Billings. Further, none of the proj-
    ects was in the same locality as any other project; all but two
    represented the only NLL project located in a given state, and
    the two projects in California were hundreds of miles apart.
    3
    The administrative office and maintenance shop might be deemed sep-
    arate sites based on 20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i)(5) if they have separate manage-
    ment, separate workforces, or produce separate products; however,
    because the total number of employees at both the office and shop is less
    than 50, we need not resolve this question.
    12102           BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    See Williams, 23 F.3d at 934 (holding that employment loca-
    tions in different states separated by hundreds of miles could
    not be aggregated as a “single site” under the WARN Act due
    to lack of proximity).
    [3] Because none of the construction project locations was
    geographically proximate to Billings or to any other construc-
    tion project location, Billings and the various project sites are
    separate sites of employment under 20 C.F.R. § 639.3(i)(1)-
    (5). NLL therefore had 50 employees at a “single site” only
    if the number of remote construction workers can be aggre-
    gated with the number of headquarter employees. To consider
    this possibility, we look to § 639.3(i)(6)’s provision for “out-
    stationed workers.”
    2.   Outstationed Workers’ “Single Site”
    Section 639.3(i)(6) counts certain categories of mobile
    employees as part of a site of employment distinct from that
    at which they are physically located, that site being the site of
    their home base for WARN Act purposes. Plaintiffs contend
    that all NLL employees who work outside of Billings are
    “outstationed,” that Billings is their home base, and that the
    Billings headquarters is therefore the “single site of employ-
    ment for all NLL employees under § 639.3(i)(6).
    We disagree with Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the regulation.
    We note at the outset that Plaintiffs may not have been “out-
    stationed” at all. The term most logically connotes a situation
    where employees live for a short period of time at a certain
    site, departing for home when the work is done. Accord Wiltz
    v. M/G Transp. Servs., Inc., 
    128 F.3d 957
    , 962 (6th Cir.
    1997). The remote construction workers, by contrast, were
    generally not residents of Montana and did not, therefore,
    consider Billings to be their home. The DOL’s comments
    explain that its regulation was intended to apply to “mobile
    workers,” including “outstationed workers and traveling
    workers who report to but do not work out of a particular
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS              12103
    office.” Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, 54
    Fed. Reg. 16,042, 16051 (Apr. 20, 1989). The DOL also
    noted that in the construction industry, many workers at dis-
    persed projects would be stationed at sites for temporary proj-
    ects only and therefore would not trigger WARN Act
    coverage. Id. at 16,055.
    We recognize, however, that some courts look directly to
    the regulation’s three definitions of the “single site of employ-
    ment” in order to decide whether a group of employees quali-
    fies. See, e.g., Ciarlante v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco
    Corp., 
    143 F.3d 139
    , 145 (3d Cir. 1998); Driver’s, Inc., 101
    F.3d at 1110. Examining these definitions, we conclude that
    Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that Billings meets any of the
    criteria for assignment as NLL remote workers’ site of
    employment. Specifically, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated
    that Billings was: (1) the site to which workers were assigned
    as their home base; (2) the site from which work was
    assigned; or (3) the site to which the workers reported. See 20
    C.F.R. § 639.3(i)(6); cf. Driver’s, Inc., 101 F.3d at 1110
    (“This subpart is written in the disjunctive: any one of the
    alternatives may qualify as the definition of ‘single site.’ ”).
    A.   Home Base
    We agree with Defendants that Billings was not the “home
    base” of NLL’s construction-site employees. Although
    § 636(i)(6) does not define the term, we are persuaded by the
    reasoning of Ciarlante and Driver’s, Inc. that an employee’s
    home base is the place from which he leaves at the start of the
    work period and/or returns to at the end of the work period,
    or at the very least, where he is physically present at some
    point during a typical work period. See Ciarlante, 143 F.3d at
    146; Driver’s, Inc., 101 F.3d at 1110.
    [4] In Ciarlante, traveling salespersons laid off by the
    American Tobacco Company sought WARN Act compensa-
    tion as mobile employees under § 639.3(i)(6). 143 F.3d at
    12104              BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    141-42. The plaintiffs routinely called into the company head-
    quarters to check phone messages and complete administra-
    tive tasks, but normally remained in their own sales districts
    in the course of their business. Id. at 146. Reversing the grant
    of summary judgment on another ground, the Third Circuit
    held that the plaintiffs could establish that the headquarters
    was the home base only of those employees who were physi-
    cally present there “during the course of a typical business
    trip.” Id. at 147; see also Driver’s, Inc., 101 F.3d at 1110
    (holding that the home base of plaintiff truck drivers was the
    trucking terminal at which the drivers started and ended his or
    her workweek); cf. Wiltz, 128 F.3d at 962 (noting that 80 per-
    cent of the plaintiff towboat crew members “physically
    reported to Paducah,” the city the court ultimately held to be
    the crews’ single site of employment, for their assignment to
    the boats).
    [5] Here, Plaintiffs have not presented any evidence that the
    NLL employees who worked at remote construction locations
    physically reported to Billings at all during a typical work
    period.4 The former comptroller of NLL stated that many
    laborers working on NLL construction projects were hired
    and fired at the location of the project, without ever being
    physically present in Billings. He also stated that some NLL
    employees would travel from one construction project to
    another in locations across the country but without physically
    reporting to Billings. Finally, he stated that some NLL
    employees were never physically present in the state of Mon-
    tana. Overall, the picture drawn here is of scattered “home
    4
    In response to an interrogatory asking where they last worked, many
    Plaintiffs working on remote construction projects stated both their remote
    location but added that they always “worked out of Billings.” Plaintiffs
    argue that this establishes Billings was the home base for such employees.
    These statements, however, are insufficient to raise a genuine issue of
    material fact on this issue. They constitute merely bare assertions of a
    legal conclusion, not supported by any other “specific facts showing that
    there is a genuine issue for trial.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e); see MAI Sys. Corp.
    v. Peak Computer, Inc., 
    991 F.2d 511
    , 518 (9th Cir. 1993).
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS             12105
    bases” at the various construction sites throughout the coun-
    try, and plaintiff-workers who had no need to physically
    report to Billings for any purpose. Plaintiffs have failed to
    demonstrate that Billings was the home base of a sufficient
    number of NLL employees.
    B.   Site From Which Work Was Assigned
    [6] Nor have Plaintiffs shown that Billings can be consid-
    ered the site from which work was assigned the remote con-
    struction workers. For the majority of plaintiffs, work
    originated on-site rather than in Billings. Cf. Wiltz, 128 F.3d
    at 962 (noting that towboat crews received their route assign-
    ments from the employer’s home office in Paducah, Ken-
    tucky, which it found to be the crews’ single site of
    employment). Day-to-day management of the workers simi-
    larly occurred on-site. Cf. Ciarlante, 143 F.3d at 148-49
    (vacating grant of summary judgment because the parties sub-
    mitted conflicting evidence of the location of day-to-day man-
    agement of traveling salespeople); Driver’s, Inc., 101 F.3d at
    1111 (holding that trucking terminals constituted various sites
    of employment because day-to-day operations were run out of
    these terminals, even though route assignments were made
    from a centralized location elsewhere). Under either test,
    Plaintiffs have not presented evidence that a sufficient number
    of employees at remote job sites were assigned work out of
    Billings.
    Of the plaintiffs based at remote construction sites who
    responded to Defendants’ interrogatories, 19 out of 23
    reported that their supervisor was the project manager at the
    remote location. Only two responded that their supervisor was
    a Billings-based employee, and both of those plaintiffs were
    project managers at those construction locations. Two other
    employees listed both a Billings-based manager and a remote
    project manager as their supervisor. With respect to the con-
    struction workers, the record demonstrates that the day-to-day
    decisions on the construction sites were not actively managed
    12106           BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    by the Billings headquarters, but were instead overseen by on-
    site project managers. Further, the project managers would
    often hire and fire employees on their own prerogative, inde-
    pendent of any supervision from the Billings headquarters.
    This further shows that such plaintiffs were not directly
    assigned any work from Billings; rather, their work assign-
    ments originated on-site with their direct supervisor. Although
    project managers apparently received assignments from Bil-
    lings to a certain extent, Plaintiffs did not submit evidence
    that NLL employed a sufficient number of these managers to
    reach the requisite 50 full-time employees.
    [7] The primary evidence Plaintiffs present to support their
    claim that the Billings office managed activities at remote
    construction sites is that staff at the Billings office was
    responsible for all accounting, billing, payroll, and adminis-
    trative functions. But although this assistance facilitated
    NLL’s ability to operate remote construction projects while
    maintaining a single administrative center, Plaintiffs’ actual
    work involved construction, not accounting and administra-
    tion. The coordination of payroll and personnel functions sim-
    ply does not constitute an assignment of work under
    § 639.3(i)(6). See Ciarlante, 143 F.3d at 147; Driver’s, Inc.,
    101 F.3d at 1111. Therefore, we hold that Plaintiffs failed to
    raise a genuine issue of fact regarding whether a sufficient
    number of NLL employees were assigned work from Billings
    to qualify the employees for WARN Act protection.
    C.   Site to Which Employees Report
    [8] Finally, under § 639.3(i)(6), the site to which outsta-
    tioned employees report will be deemed their “single site of
    employment.” Again, Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that Bil-
    lings so qualifies. The site to which an employee at a remote
    location reports is the site at which management issues work
    orders, and directly reviews a remote employee’s job perfor-
    mance and work product in order to evaluate progress and set
    goals. See Ciarlante, 143 F.3d at 148 (the place to which trav-
    BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS                   12107
    eling salespeople reported was “the location of the personnel
    who were primarily responsible for reviewing sales reports
    and other information sent by the sales representatives, in
    order to record sales, assess employee performance, develop
    new sales strategies, and the like”). Again, therefore, “report-
    ing” to Billings for the purposes of payroll and other central-
    ized administrative functions is insufficient, standing alone, to
    qualify Billings as the single site of employment. See Driv-
    er’s, Inc., 101 F.3d at 1110-11.
    Although remote project managers may have reported
    directly to Billings-based NLL vice-presidents, Plaintiffs have
    not presented any evidence that Billings-based managers eval-
    uated the job performance and work product of management
    and non-management employees alike at remote job sites.5
    Instead, as discussed above, most employees at remote job
    sites reported directly to local supervisors, implying that
    employees’ job performance and work product were evalu-
    ated there. Cf. Ciarlante, 143 F.3d at 148-49 (finding genuine
    issue of material fact as to where sales employees reported,
    where it was unclear whether weekly sales reports were
    reviewed locally or at a central office).
    CONCLUSION
    In sum, Plaintiffs have failed to raise a genuine issue of
    material fact whether 50 or more people were laid off at a
    “single site of employment” under the WARN Act. The
    remote construction locations clearly do not qualify as a sin-
    gle site of employment under § 639.3(i)(1)-(5). With respect
    to subsection (6) of the regulation, there is no evidence that
    NLL employees at remote construction projects physically
    reported to Billings during the course of the projects, that Bil-
    lings originated work or was responsible for the day-to-day
    5
    Indeed, it is improbable that a manager in Billings would evaluate the
    work product or performance of remote construction workers because of
    the material nature of the work product in this case.
    12108         BADER v. NORTHERN LINE LAYERS
    management of the majority of workers at the remote con-
    struction project locations, or that the workers directly
    reported their progress to Billings.
    Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
    AFFIRMED.