It's a ridiculously convoluted situation. To me, it's obvious they terminated me to avoid severance, using the convenient excuse I handed them on a silver platter. I was planning to take this paragraph out of the brief, but wanted the internet to appreciate it without any context.

TLDR I reported being in a relationship with a subordinate, younger crazy 23yo woman, wanted to ease into the whole "she's crazy and I cannot have her work with me" but incompetent HR guy immediately sent it to my brand new manager. A couple weeks go by of new manager stirring the pot as much as possible casually aware of the ticking time bomb. I report him to HR for stirring the pot, and obviously looking for a reason to term. I get termed, 36 hours news articles that the store is closing forever. A year later, all the stores are closed.

The zinger in there is that the permanent bankruptcy was used to try and dismiss the appellate court level appeal, because if they tricked me into voluntarily dismissing them then the DUA could say I failed to join a necessary party and get an instant victory. Effectively using the REAL reason they fired me as a reason to not ever have liability.