A woman who worked at Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin’s law firm is suing the firm and accusing it of firing her after she sought time off to care for her ailing mother-in-law.
According to the complaint, filed earlier this month in state Superior Court in Middlesex County, Dorota A. Ferraro alleges the firm violated the New Jersey Family Leave Act by restricting her ability to work remotely and then abruptly firing her after she asked for time off.
Coughlin, a Democrat and the longest-serving Assembly Speaker in the state’s history, has expanded New Jersey’s family leave law during his time leading the lower chamber. The law bars employers from retaliating against workers who seek to exercise their leave rights.
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In January, a bill sponsored by Coughlin to expand the act to make 400,000 additional workers eligible was signed into law.
“Study after study shows that expanding family leave is good for the workforce, good for babies and families, and good for our state as a whole,” Coughlin said after that bill passed the Legislature.
A spokeswoman for Coughlin and an attorney for Ferraro did not respond to a request for comment.
Ferraro, of Laurence Harbor, was employed as a paralegal at Rainone Coughlin Minchello from March 2023 to Sept. 18, 2024 (Coughlin is a partner at the firm), the complaint says.
Ferraro alleges her mother-in-law suffered a stroke around September 2023, which led to some weakness or paralysis on her left side, and by the summer of 2024, Ferraro notified the firm’s manager that she would need one to two days off weekly to serve as a caregiver.
After she raised the issue of family leave, the firm told her she could no longer work from home, as she had been doing about twice a week, and she was terminated in September without having received any verbal or written warning from the firm, the complaint says.
Ferraro is seeking reinstatement, back pay, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees.
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