Orange Happy Hour Shirts Lead to Mass Firing at Deerfield Beach Law Firm: Report

14 employees of Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A. were fired because an executive thought they were protesting

They wore orange – and got fired for it.

So say four former employees of the Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A. law firm in Deerfield Beach who were terminated after they came to work in orange shirts on Friday, the company’s pay day, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.

They said they’ve worn orange shirts on pay days for the past few months so they would look like a group when they went out afterward for happy hour, the newspaper reported. Janice Doble, 50, of Sunrise said she was looking forward to the gathering after a busy week.

“Orange happens to be my favorite color. My patio is orange," she told the paper. “My lipstick was orange today.”

Unfortunately for Doble and 13 other employees, an executive viewed things very differently. He told them that he understood there was a protest involving orange, and because they were all wearing the color, they were fired, the Sun Sentinel reported.

One person immediately denied being part of a protest and explained the happy hour connection, but after the law firm’s honchos discussed the matter outside the room, they returned and said everyone was fired, said Lou Erik Ambert, a litigation paralegal.

"There is no office policy against wearing orange shirts. We had no warning. We got no severance, no package, no nothing," said Ambert, 31, of Coconut Creek. "I feel so violated."

A spokeswoman for the firm said it had “no comment at this time,” according to the Sun Sentinel.

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