Between sales, marketing, PM, PMM and the whole converged team, there was way over 50 impacted employees in California in April, 2018 (off payroll in June, 2018). I'd encourage all impacted employees to file a complaint.
Is this true? If it is, than @UAAvXLy-hmhf is right. Everybody should file a complaint.
Hitachi Vantara HR team is very sharp team and have been managing caringly and carefully for 25 + years the employee assets and in this unfortunate case will have ensured to not violate such obvious calif EDD rule. For those in that case, Call HV HR and ask about this rule before investing valuable $ on lawyers.
Where, in the WARN reporting requirements, does it state that those offered severance do not have to be counted?
The exemptions and exceptions are clearly stated here and severance is not a consideration:
https://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/Layoff_Services_WARN.htm
If there are any severance packages for those folks mentioned , then most likely they will not be counted by Calif EDD rules . And for those with severance packages they most likely signed a detail
Severance agreement where they agreed to not file any legal action or else they will have to return the severance pay.