Case Summary
A service manager and practicing Jehovah's Witness with a clean work record was transferred to a new location where her new manager refused to honor a previously approved three-day unpaid leave for a religious convention. After she escalated the matter to upper management and the leave was ultimately approved, she reported to the same manager that another female employee was being sexually harassed by him. Both upper management and the regional director failed to investigate her complaint. Within weeks of her report, the manager terminated her employment, citing inventory management issues she had never previously been flagged for. She sued her manager and employer for violating the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination through religious discrimination, retaliation for reporting sexual harassment, and wrongful termination.
Background
The client worked for the company as a service manager, having assisted in the opening of eight of the company's locations in the state. She is a practicing Jehovah's Witness, which was well known at the time she was hired. During her time at the company, she maintained a clean work record.
Approximately five months before a three-day religious convention, she submitted a request for unpaid time off to attend, which her general manager at the time approved. She was subsequently transferred to a restaurant location in another town, where she reported to a new manager.
Shortly after her transfer, she informed her new manager that she had received approval from her previous manager for unpaid leave to attend the three-day religious convention. Her new manager agreed to allow only two of the three previously approved days off and told her that if she wanted the third day, she would need to find someone to cover her shift. When she reiterated the importance of attending all three days of the convention, her manager responded, "I don't care about your religious beliefs, and if I were practicing Judaism, I'd take off every Saturday." He warned her that if she did not come in to work, she would lose her job.
Following that conversation, she emailed two upper management supervisors to report the incident. An upper manager replied that she could take the time off and not to worry about it. After she found someone to cover her shift, she attended the three-day convention and returned to work as scheduled.
Within approximately one month of her transfer, another female employee informed the client that she was being sexually harassed by the manager. The other employee confided that the manager had made inappropriate jokes about her breasts that made her extremely uncomfortable. In response, the client reported the manager to the company's regional director and to upper management. Neither party conducted any investigation into her complaints, and the manager was never reprimanded. He continued to manage both the client and the other female employee.
Within a few weeks of her report, the manager informed the client that she was being terminated for failing to manage inventory correctly. She had never previously been found to have any issues with inventory management and had received no prior warning about her performance. Before she had requested leave for the religious convention and before she had reported the sexual harassment, she had consistently been told she was doing an excellent job. She had never received a complaint or been disciplined for any work-related reason.
