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SALT LAKE CITY — A former Salt Lake Stallions executive is suing the Alliance of American Football, alleging the now-defunct league let him go without proper notice.
Richard Muirbrook, who worked as the team's vice president of tickets sales and service, claims in the lawsuit that the AAF violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires 60 days advance written notice of termination.
"The lack of notice of termination caused significant harm to plaintiff and claimants who were unable to properly plan for a job transition or make plans for the unexpected and immediate lack of income caused by the reckless actions of the company," according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
Muirbrook is suing for wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday and vacation pay for 60 days following the league's April 3 shutdown. Proposed as a class action, the lawsuit says the shutdown left at least 90 other Stallions' employees and hundreds across the league in the same position.
"Shockingly, plaintiff, along with the claimants, was provided only one-day notice of termination from the company," according to the suit.
The AAF, made up of teams in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orlando, Arizona, San Antonio and San Diego, folded eight games into the 10-game season and less than four weeks before its scheduled first championship game.
Muirbrook said in the lawsuit that he was told when the Stallions hired him last August that the AAF had close to $1 billion in funding and could last three years without selling any tickets or gaining any sponsors.
In February and March, Muirbrook learned about overdue bills from vendors and was told by the AFF it was normal, that it had the money to cover them and only needed to improve its payment process, the lawsuit says.
News outlets reported that AAF was going to miss payroll but league representatives said that the payroll issues were due to a technical glitch, not funding, according to the suit.
