Lynne Anderson Quoted in the Star-Ledger
Florham Park partner Lynne Anderson was quoted in a Star-Ledger article titled, “School board clerk can be indicted for taking documents, N.J. Supreme Court rules.” The article discussed the Supreme Court’s ruling that employee Ivonne Saavedra can be indicted for taking confidential documents from her school district employer, despite her claim that she had a legitimate reason to take the documents to use in her employment lawsuit against her employer.
The court rejected Saavedra’s argument that taking the documents was permitted under the New Jersey Supreme Court’s prior decision in Quinlan v. Curtiss-Wright Corp, which sets out a multiple factor test to assess whether an employee may take confidential documents to use as self-help in her retaliation lawsuit.
Lynne said that many lawyers representing employees believe that Quinlan allows employees to take their documents from their employer as long as the reason for the taking is to support their discrimination lawsuit. “The court addressed that head on and said, ‘No, that’s not right,’” she said. “The employers’ rights also need to be balanced.”