Florida Law Firm Allegedly Fires 14 Employees For Wearing Matching Shirts

Those Matching Work Outfits Could Cost You Your Job

It's always a little bit embarrassing when you show up to work wearing the same thing as the person who shares your cubicle (a situation we're very familiar with here at The Huffington Post), but for employees at one Florida law firm, outfit coordination allegedly cost them their jobs.

Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A., a Deerfield Beach, Florida law firm, allegedly fired 14 employees because they all wore orange shirts on payday, a move management viewed as a kind of protest, The Daily Mail reports. The employees claim that the matchy-matchy outfits had become somewhat of a tradition among workers who liked to dress similarly when that went out together for drinks after work on Fridays, but new management viewed the outfits as a protest and fired the employees.

This isn't the first time workplace attire has cost an employee their job. Last November, Billy E. Hyatt, a factory worker in Georgia, was fired over his refusal to wear a "666" sticker that indicated the number of days the factory had operated without an accident. Hyatt refused to wear the sticker due to its Biblical associations as the Apocalyptic "mark of the beast." Hyatt explained his concerns to his employer, saying that wearing the number could jeopadize his salvation. Ultimately, it cost him his job.

In another clothing-related layoff, Debrahlee Lorenzana was fired from her job at Citigroup in New York in 2009 for being "too hot," at least according to her. She filed a lawsuit in 2010 after superiors became increasingly specific about her attire, insisting that while she could continue to wear makeup she should refrain from wearing high-heels since they "drew attention to her body in a manner that was upsetting to her easily distracted male managers," according to the lawsuit.

More recently, Melissa Luna, a New York City Board of Education employee assigned to help Riker's Island inmates achieve their high school equivalency was fired for her clothing, which employers said allowed her to "[strut] her stuff" in an inappropriate fashion, according to WPIX. Luna maintained that her attire of slacks and a cardigan sweater were inbounds but her employer stated simply that "Melissa was asked several times to dress in an appropriate and professional manner, and did not."

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