New Jersey company fired me for not reading emails after miscarriage, woman claims in lawsuit

A lawyer who worked for a Morristown chemical company has filed a discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was fired for missing emails and after she asked for time off to recover from her miscarriage.

The 36-year-old New Yorker says in court documents that she was fired from Arxada LLC two weeks after her miscarriage and just days after she expressed a desire to take disability or medical leave “to process a traumatic, life-changing event.”

The reason given for her termination was her failure to respond to her work emails, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in New Jersey Supreme Court.

“Instead of providing Plaintiff with adequate and basic accommodations, Defendants took the first opportunity to discriminate against Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that the woman, who had worked as a corporate lawyer, was fired for being “unresponsive” to emails because she was unable to respond immediately due to medical complications while recovering.

“This case concerns the most fundamental right of an employee – the right to work while pregnant and to request reasonable pregnancy-related accommodations without suffering retaliation in the workplace,” the woman's lawyers say in the lawsuit.

When the woman “suffered the unimaginable loss of her unborn child, the defendants did not care at all,” the lawsuit states.

A spokesman for Arxada LLC said Wednesday that the company was “discouraged by the allegations” in the complaint, which were “contrary to our culture at Arxada.”

“We take these allegations very seriously and intend to vigorously defend ourselves and prevail in court,” the spokesman said.

According to the lawsuit, the woman learned of her pregnancy in December 2023, but complications soon arose.

Two months later, genetic testing revealed that the woman's unborn child suffered from a rare condition called Trisomy 13, which “carries an incredibly high risk of miscarriage due to heart problems and spinal cord abnormalities during fetal development,” the lawsuit states.

A baby born with trisomy 13 has an average life expectancy of seven to ten days and up to 95 percent of them do not survive the first year of life, the lawsuit says, citing medical literature.

Shortly after the diagnosis was announced, an ultrasound showed no heartbeat, indicating a miscarriage. The woman underwent surgery to recover from her miscarriage, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states that when she informed her supervisor about the miscarriage, she was told: “Please take as much time as you need.”

Despite “the life-changing news and the traumatic miscarriage,” the woman worked as much as she was physically able, even though she was physically and emotionally unwell, the lawsuit states.

However, towards the end of the month, the woman was suddenly fired after her supervisor said “people” had complained about her lack of response to emails, the lawsuit says.

According to the lawsuit, the only emails the woman was unable to respond to were two emails from her supervisor that she did not consider urgent.

The lawsuit alleges that the woman was fired due to unequal treatment and discrimination in violation of New Jersey's anti-discrimination law.

The woman is demanding reinstatement as well as payment of back wages, additional benefits and damages.