NJ clerk wanted 1 day off each week for therapy, lawsuit says

🔴 Former clerk said new mayor wanted her fired

🔴 She sought one day off each week for therapy

🔴 Says request for family leave was approved, then challenged

FLEMINGTON — A borough clerk requested off each Tuesday for counseling to deal with harassment at work, according to a new lawsuit.

Flemington borough hired Rebecca Newman first as a tax collector in 2010. She resigned this year.

Newman claimed in the lawsuit filed last week that she needed therapy after Mayor Marcia Karrow, a Republican, harassed her repeatedly at work.

The borough pushed back when Newman "requested to have every Tuesday off from work to attend her scheduled psychological counseling sessions," the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, Flemington retaliated against her for trying to attend therapy and she was forced to resign amid a hostile work environment.

New Jersey 101.5 sent a request for comment to Karrow, a former state senator who won Flemington's mayoral race in November 2022. Chris Corsini, the borough attorney, said Flemington "disputes the allegations" in the lawsuit.

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Family Medical Leave Act covers therapy during work?

The lawsuit said that after Karrow was elected, she told her predecessor to fire Newman. A reason for the request was not included in court documents filed by Newman's attorneys and first reported by MyCentralJersey.com.

However, the outgoing mayor refused. When Karrow took office, she began repeatedly harassing Newman, according to the lawsuit.

While it's unclear in the lawsuit what harassment Newman faced, she got an evaluation and secured a meeting with a social worker at 11 a.m. every Tuesday morning. She claimed she tried to reschedule for a better time but could not.

Newman at first used her sick days to call out on Tuesdays, according to the lawsuit.

She then got approval from the borough using the Family Medical Leave Act to skip work for counseling, the lawsuit said. But two weeks later, the borough sent a follow-up letter saying that her medical proof wasn't enough and challenged her use of the FMLA.

Newman was then harassed even more for trying to take off work on Tuesdays using the FMLA and she was forced to quit, the lawsuit said.

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