Robinson Rent-A-Center manager says she lost her job for obeying stay-at-home order - TribLIVE

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A former Rent-A-Center employee who worked in Robinson has started legal proceedings against the company, saying she lost her job for refusing to come into work during Pennsylvania’s coronavirus lockdown.

Tiffany Sager this week filed an arbitration demand seeking lost wages and punitive damages against the company.

Sager worked as a sales manager for AcceptanceNOW, a Rent-A-Center subsidiary that operates out of furniture stores and offers financing to shoppers.

Sager’s AcceptanceNOW location was based in the Value City Furniture store in Robinson.

The furniture store closed in March when Gov. Wolf issued his stay-at-home order, and Rent-A-Center furloughed Sager. She said she got a call from her district manager on May 2.

“She had informed me that the Value City Furniture stores in Pittsburgh was going to open up their locations to customers by appointment only… and she asked me to come in and report to work that Sunday, the very next day,” Sager said. “I questioned it because we were still in the mandatory stay-at-home order.”

Furniture stores were required to close during the shutdown.

According to Sager, the manager said she would look into these concerns and call back. Sager later found out that another employee had been called into work.

It never crossed her mind she might lose her job, she said.

“They never said ‘well, if you don’t go in we could fill your position,’” she said.

She reached out to her managers again on May 14, just before Allegheny County businesses were allowed to reopen, and asked when she would be returning to work. She was informed that her position had been filled.

Attorney Ted Schroeder of Littler Mendelson law firm in Pittsburgh is representing Rent-A-Center. He said the company reopened the AcceptanceNow location legally, and that it offered Sager a sales manager position at a different store.

“The company vigorously dispute the allegations in the (arbitration demand), or that it did anything illegal with respect to Ms. Sager’s employment or the governor’s orders,” he said.

Rent-A-Center had received permission to operate during the shutdown, he said.

“Rent-A-Center was permitted to operate its AcceptanceNOW location under the governor’s order, and that’s who she worked for,” he said.

Sager’s lawyer, Margaret Coleman of O’Brien Law, said the Value City Furniture location that hosted AcceptanceNOW was open in violation of the governor’s orders.

“As far as we can tell it should not have been opened,” she said.

Value City Furniture could not be reached for comment.

Schroeder questioned why Sager filed the demand and reached out to the media rather than accepting another sales manager position, calling it an attempt to extort money from Rent-A-Center.

“(The company) offered Ms. Sager multiple opportunities to return to work in a sales manager position, she chose not to accept those opportunities,” he said.

The arbitration demand said the company offered Sager a position replacing a manager who was on maternity leave, and she feared she would be laid off once the manager returned.

Sager said she wanted to return to the job she’s held.

“This was my livelihood, this was everything that I’ve worked toward, moving up,” she said. “This was my second home.”

She is currently unemployed.

An arbitration demand is not a lawsuit. In the arbitration process both parties present their cases to a neutral arbitrator — not a judge — who will decide the outcome.

Jacob Tierney is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jacob at 724-836-6646, jtierney@triblive.com or via Twitter .

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