“A constructive discharge occurs when the employer has imposed upon an employee working conditions ‘so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign.'” Daniels v. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 340 N.J. Super. 11, 17 (App. Div. 2001) (quoting Muench v. Twp. of Haddon, 255 N.J. Super. 288, 302…
Retaliatory adverse employment actions are not only limited to termination. If an employer engages in a bad faith or a sham internal investigation against an employee after the employee blew the whistle about conduct, he or she reasonably believed violated the law, was fraudulent, or was contrary to public policy,…
The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act (CREAMMA) signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy on February 22, 2021 brought new employment protections for job applicants and employees who lawfully use cannabis recreationally while not at work, namely, employees cannot be subject to an adverse employment…
On October 28, 2021, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed Senate Bill S4394A (the “NY Amendments”) into law amending New York Labor Law Section 740: Retaliatory Personnel Action by Employers; Prohibition (the “Labor Law”) N.Y.L.L. 740, dramatically expanding the legal protections afforded to whistleblowing employees. The NY Amendments are set…
The failure to establish a causal nexus between protected whistleblowing activity and the termination of her employment was the demise of plaintiff’s whistleblowing claim in a recently issued Appellate Division opinion in Brown v. Regina Foley, et. al. 2021 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 957 (decided May 20, 2021). In Brown,…
The New Jersey Supreme Court recently addressed, among other issues, the question of whether a “suggested course of action” by a supervisor to a subordinate can suffice as a reasonable belief under New Jersey’s whistleblower law that the supervisor wants the subordinate to engage in conduct that violates law or…
The law in New Jersey is clear that actual or constructive discharge is not a required element for recovery of economic losses due to employer’s retaliatory actions under New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), N.J.S.A. 34:19-1 to -14; Donelson v. DuPont Chambers Works, 206 N.J. 243 (2011). Under CEPA,…
As discussed in Mashel Law’s last blog posting, when a worker stricken with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), or likely exposed to same, needs to take time off to recover from the effects of the virus or to quarantine themselves from spreading it to family and coworkers, he or she may…
New Jersey’s whistleblowing law is known as the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 34:19-1 et seq. (“CEPA”). To prove a CEPA case, an employee must show that because they disclosed, objected, and/or or refused to participate in activities engaged in by their employer or their coworker(s) that they reasonably believed…
A worker in New Jersey who is fired for complaining to their employer about its New Jersey’s wage law violations may be able to sue to recover damages under our state’s whistleblowing laws. Recently, the New Jersey Appellate Division clarified that a plaintiff does not need to allege both a…