Delaware Separation and Release Agreement
In Delaware the wage statute does the most to shape a separation agreement. Earned wages are due on a fixed deadline, the wage law cannot be set aside by private agreement, and larger layoffs trigger a state WARN Act with its own notice contents. The timing rules for releasing age claims come from federal law.
What Delaware law does to this document
Final wages have a deadline
When an employee quits, is discharged or is laid off, earned wages are due on the later of two dates: the next regular payday for the period through the last day worked, or three business days after the last day worked. An employer that misses the date without reasonable grounds for dispute owes liquidated damages of 10 percent of the unpaid wages per day, up to an amount equal to the unpaid wages.
19 Del. C. § 1103Earned wages cannot be traded for the release
Except as the chapter itself allows, no provision of the Wage Payment and Collection Act may be contravened or set aside by private agreement. Severance must therefore be something beyond wages already owed. Vacation and separation pay that the employer has agreed to provide are benefits or wage supplements, payable within 30 days after they are due.
19 Del. C. §§ 1109, 1110The state discrimination claims being released
The Delaware Discrimination in Employment Act covers employers with 4 or more employees in the state. Its protected characteristics include race, sex and age of 40 or more, along with others such as sexual orientation and gender identity. A charge must be filed within 300 days of the alleged practice or its discovery. A general release is normally drafted to name state fair-employment laws so that it covers these claims.
19 Del. C. §§ 710, 711, 712Delaware WARN Act for group layoffs
An employer with 100 or more employees, not counting part-time employees, must give at least 60 days' written notice before a mass layoff, plant closing or relocation. A mass layoff means an employment loss at a single site within 30 days for 500 or more employees, or for 50 or more who make up at least 33 percent of the workforce there. The notice goes to affected employees, the Department of Labor and the workforce development board, and it must include general information on severance packages. An employer that fails to give notice owes back pay and benefits for the period of the violation, up to 60 days or half the days the employee worked for the employer if that is fewer.
19 Del. C. §§ 1903, 1904, 1909Health coverage at small employers
Delaware has its own continuation rule for people who are not covered by federal COBRA. Insured group health policies of employers with 1 to 19 employees must offer continuation for up to 9 months after a qualifying event. The employer must notify the employee of these rights within 30 days of the qualifying event, and the premium may not exceed 102 percent of the group rate.
18 Del. C. § 3571FFederal: releasing age claims
This is federal law. A waiver of Age Discrimination in Employment Act claims by an employee aged 40 or older is valid only if it meets the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act. The employee must be advised in writing to consult an attorney, must have at least 21 days to consider the agreement, or 45 days in a group termination program, and must have 7 days after signing to revoke. Group programs also require written disclosure of the job titles and ages of those selected and not selected.
29 U.S.C. § 626(f)(1)Where people go wrong in Delaware
- Labeling final wages or agreed vacation pay as severance and holding them until the release is signed, when Delaware requires those amounts to be paid on their own deadlines.
- Giving 21 days to consider the agreement in a group layoff that includes employees aged 40 or older, where federal law requires 45 days and written group disclosures.
- Treating the generator's draft as the whole layoff file: it is a release only, and it contains neither the 60-day Delaware WARN Act notice that a layoff of 50 or more employees at one site can require nor the notice of state health continuation rights a small employer owes within 30 days.
How the generator works
A severance-for-release agreement that trades a defined severance payment for a general release of claims, with the ADEA/OWBPA machinery for employees 40+ and 2026-current disclosure and carve-out language. Answer a short interview and the draft assembles as you go, with Delaware already set as the governing state. Download it as PDF or Word. No fee. No account.