Board of Ed. sued for alleged ‘hostile work environment’
TRENTON » Two bigwig employees of the Trenton Public Schools District have filed a second lawsuit accusing the district of harassment, intimidation and retaliation.
Janet Morales-Nicodemus, a supervisor of bilingual programs, and Norberto Diaz, a supervisor of visual and performing arts, originally filed a whistleblower complaint against the district last May.
Presiding Judge Douglas H. Hurd of the Mercer County Superior Court dismissed the initial litigation without prejudice on Dec. 4 but gave the plaintiffs 30 days to file a new complaint against the defendants.
The plaintiffs obliged by filing a new lawsuit on Dec. 31, 2020, which is substantially similar to the original civil-action complaint.
The attorney Stephen H. Cha filed the initial and subsequent complaints on behalf of Morales-Nicodemus and Diaz.
The Trentonian contacted Cha’s law offices earlier this month seeking comments for this story. The newspaper ultimately received an email from Donald Becker signed by Kim & Cha LLC saying the “plaintiffs and their counsel have ‘no comment’ at this time.”
Becker previously communicated with The Trentonian via email last fall, when it became clear the initial complaint was on the verge of being dismissed for lack of prosecution.
As of Saturday, state records show Donald W. Becker is administratively ineligible to practice law in New Jersey.
The litigation
Diaz of Hudson County and Morales-Nicodemus of Hamilton Township are suing the Trenton Board of Education and several current or former district officials, including financial chief Jayne S. Howard, general counsel James Rolle Jr., retired chief academic officer Elizabeth DeJesus, former interim superintendent Ronald C. Lee and former permanent superintendent Fred McDowell.
Morales-Nicodemus alleges the district had subjected her to “sexual harassment” and the threat of disciplinary action for complaining since 2017 about the district’s alleged failure to provide the immigrant student population or English Language Learners with an equitable education.
Diaz accuses the district of unlawful retaliation, alleging the district had placed him on paid administrative leave after he “stood up for plaintiff Morales” at a September 2019 meeting.
Both plaintiffs demand a trial by jury and compensatory damages and punitive damages, alleging they have both been subjected to a “hostile work environment” that caused them to both suffer ongoing “pain and emotional distress.”
Rolle, one of the defendants named in the lawsuit, did not respond to an email requesting comment for this story. But based upon the initial case history, the district’s legal team will likely ask the Superior Court to dismiss this second complaint with prejudice.
Casey P. Acker, an attorney representing Trenton Public Schools, previously filed court papers last November calling for the original complaint to be dismissed.
“In its current form, Plaintiffs’ Complaint is incoherent and should be dismissed for impropriety of pleading and failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” Acker said in the filing. “The Complaint is otherwise unintelligible in its present form and must be dismissed for impropriety of pleading.”
Acker attacked the initial complaint for being “anything but” simple, concise and direct, and faulted the plaintiffs for going after McDowell, the former superintendent of schools who resigned in August 2019.
The plaintiffs are suing McDowell for the purpose of obtaining information or so-called “discovery,” according to their original and followup complaints.
The attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants all consented to Hurd’s order last month dismissing the original complaint without prejudice, but Cha made very little revisions or substantive improvements upon filing the second complaint on New Year’s Eve.