McOmber McOmber & Luber, P.C.

Employment Lawyers in Red Bank, Marlton, & Newark, New Jersey

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McOmber McOmber & Luber, P.C., a leading law firm renowned for its expertise in employment and civil litigation, has filed a whistleblower retaliation and disability discrimination lawsuit on behalf of Pamela Steele against the Township of Wyckoff. This case has attracted various media attention due to the serious allegations of retaliation and wrongful suspension faced by Ms. Steele after reporting violations of the law and requesting to work from home as an accommodation for her serious medical issue.

Case Overview

The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, alleges that the Township of Wyckoff subjected Ms. Steele to clear retaliation after she complained about Wyckoff’s failure to provide her with raises to which she was statutorily entitled and requested to continue working remotely as an accommodation for her serious medical condition. As alleged in the Complaint, despite a clear lack of legal authority to do so, the Township of Wyckoff suspended Ms. Steele without pay and subsequently filed a petition with the New Jersey Division of Taxation to remove Ms. Steele as its municipal tax assessor.

Allegations

The complaint outlines several key allegations:

  • Retaliation: Ms. Steele experienced adverse employment actions, including unjust suspension and termination of her medical benefits, after she reported the Township of Wyckoff’s repeated failure to provide her with statutorily mandated raises to her superiors.
  • Disability Discrimination: Due to her ongoing serious medical issues, including lung cancer, Ms. Steele requested to work from home; however, rather than accommodating Ms. Steele’s request in that regard, the Township of Wyckoff instead retaliated against her by suspending her employment and terminating her medical benefits.
  • Disregard of New Jersey State Authorities: The lawsuit asserts that the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation dispatched correspondence to the Township of Wyckoff (1) specifically advising that Wyckoff did not have the legal authority to suspend Ms. Steele without pay and terminate her medical benefits and (2) requesting that the Township of Wyckoff rescind its decision in that regard. As alleged in the Complaint, the Township of Wyckoff’s animus towards Ms. Steele was no severe that that they disregarded the Division of Taxation and, in turn, they now face a separate lawsuit filed by the Attorney General of New Jersey, Division of Taxation in connection with same. Said lawsuit, which is also pending in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen Vicinage, alleges that the Township of Wyckoff’s decision to suspend Ms. Steele and terminate her benefits violates statutory law.

Legal Representation

McOmber McOmber & Luber, P.C.’s dedicated legal team, led by partners R. Armen McOmber, Esq. and Austin B. Tobin, Esq. and associate Christian J. Fechter, Esq., is committed to advocating for Ms. Steele’s rights. The firm’s extensive experience handling complex whistleblower and employment law cases uniquely positions them to seek justice and accountability.

“Whistleblowers play a crucial role in maintaining transparency and safety in workplaces. Retaliation against individuals who courageously report wrongdoing cannot be tolerated,” said Christian Fechter. “We are determined to ensure that the Township of Wyckoff is held accountable for its actions against Ms. Steele.”

Partner R. Armen McOmber and Associate Austin B. Tobin represent Azuree and Edward Albanese, and their 11-year-old daughter, L.A., in a lawsuit against the Wall Township Board of Education (“WTBOE”) as well as two music teachers employed by the WTBOE, Jessica Berube (“Defendant Berube”) and Adrienne Foutz (“Defendant Foutz”) (all collectively “Defendants”), which was filed in Monmouth County Superior Court and asserts negligence and other related claims against Defendants. On behalf of her daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Albanese seek compensatory and punitive damages.

On April 8, 2022, allegedly because L.A., a fourth (4th) grade student at the time, was laughing in class, Defendant Berube removed a drum set from a classroom closet and forcibly placed L.A. into said closet. Thereafter, Defendant Berube walked out of the closet, closed the door, and left L.A. alone and unsupervised. Making matters worse, once L.A. was eventually out of the classroom closet, she overheard Defendant Foutz tell a student to delete a recording of the aforementioned events.

“The allegations are very disturbing. As alleged in the Complaint, Mr. and Mrs. Albanese’s 11-year-old daughter was traumatized by blatantly negligent conduct on the part of Defendants on April 8, 2022 simply because she was allegedly laughing in class. Suffice to say, no parent would approve of such horrendous treatment of one of its students. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our clients in exposing this outrageous and unlawful behavior.” R. Armen McOmber, Esq., McOmber McOmber & Luber, P.C.

Partner R. Armen McOmber and Associate Austin B. Tobin represent Christine Gallinaro, and her 15-year-old disabled son, J.G., in a Law Against Discrimination lawsuit against Cinemark Hazlet 12, a movie theater located in Hazlet, New Jersey as well as that theater’s manager, Nicole Nicolet, and assistant manager, Brandon Mansueto. The lawsuit, which was filed in Monmouth County Superior Court, alleges violations of New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination. On behalf of her disabled son, Ms. Gallinaro seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs.

On June 16, 2023, Ms. Gallinaro and J.G., her 15-year-old special needs son who is diagnosed with Autism, traveled to Cinemark Hazlet 12 to see a movie. During their visit, J.G. needed to use the restroom. Since the movie theater did not have a family restroom, and given that Ms. Gallinaro’s husband was not with them, she took her disabled son to the woman’s restroom. However, as they left the women’s restroom, the location’s manager angrily approached them and shouted discriminatory remarks directed towards the obviously disabled J.G., asserting that “he shouldn’t be in here [referring to the women’s restroom]” and that a “grown” man should not be in the women’s restroom. The manager then doubled down on her discriminatory rhetoric by (1) loudly exclaiming in the theater’s crowded lobby that “this [referring to the women’s restroom] is not a transgender bathroom”; (2) ordering Ms. Gallinaro and her son to leave the premises, and (3) outrageously directing the assistant manager to call the police to have them removed from the theater. Both the assistant manager and the movie theater’s security guards then publicly humiliated Ms. Gallinaro and her son by surrounding them in a hostile and confrontational demeanor. The assistant manager ultimately did, in fact, call the police to have them removed from the premises.

“The allegations are very disturbing. As alleged in the Complaint, Ms. Gallinaro’s 15-year-old son, who is diagnosed with Autism and severe speech delays, was traumatized by blatantly discriminatory conduct on the part of Defendants on June 16, 2023 simply because he needed to use the bathroom while seeing a movie with his mother. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our clients in exposing this outrageous and unlawful behavior.” R. Armen McOmber, Esq., McOmber McOmber & Luber, P.C.

As reported in NJ.com’s “Rutgers created fake jobs for graduates to boost MBA program rankings, lawsuit charges”:

But in a whistleblower lawsuit filed Friday, a Rutgers administrator charged that the university fraudulently burnished those national rankings by creating totally bogus jobs to show the success its business school graduates had in finding employment.

The lawsuit by Deidre White, the business school’s human resources manager, alleged the program used a temp agency to hire unemployed MBA students, placing them into sham positions at the university itself — for no other reason than to make it appear like a greater number of graduates were getting full-time jobs after getting their Rutgers diplomas.
“The fraud worked,” wrote White’s attorney, Matthew A. Luber of McOmber McOmber & Luber in Marlton. In the very first year of the scheme, they said Rutgers was suddenly propelled to, among other things, the ‘No. 1′ business school in the Northeast.

The university did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

By going through an outside temp agency, the lawsuit claimed the university was able to circumvent restrictions in the ranking systems that do not allow universities to count internal hires for purposes of their employment statistics.

White, 54, who alleged she was the subject of retaliation over health and other issues aimed at forcing her resignation or termination, said the university used more than $400,000 of its endowment to fund the fake positions and to pay what she called “kickbacks” to the employment agency.

Photo credit: NJ.com

Monmouth County prosecutors announced charges on Monday against multiple students from Wall High School with hazing, attempted criminal sexual contact, false imprisonment, and harassment. The charges stem from attacks that occurred in September and October 2021 in the football team’s locker room wherein one student was “held down by four or five of his supposed teammates while they try to probe him with a broom or their fingers while they’re struggling to get away,” said Armen McOmber, the attorney representing three of the attack victims. According to McOmber, his clients were “terrorized” by what happened to them.

Attorneys for the defendants are downplaying the behavior as mere locker room horseplay, however, Armen McOmber takes serious issue with that characterization. “The idea that four or five guys can hold down another student and attempt to penetrate them, the idea that that’s acceptable conduct, that’s just ‘boys being boys,’ it’s just really warped. It’s offensive and it’s sick.”

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