This was leaked to MMO blog Massively by inside sources. Staats was best known for designing some of World of Warcraft’s most popular instances and raids, as well as such regions as Blackrock Mountain and Booty Bay.
Virtually no information about Project Titan has been released since its confirmation back in December 2010 save Blizzard’s description of it being a “casual MMO”. If Staats has indeed been laid off, it’ll be interesting to know the cause of the dismissal.