A federal court has sided with the town of East Haven after an employee accused town officials of retaliating against her for taking family medical leave to care for her injured daughter, according to a statement from the mayor's office.
Former Department of Housing and Urban Renewal secretary Francine Carbone, who filed a sexual harassment complaint against Mayor Joseph Maturo, also filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court alleging town officials “intentionally, wantonly and maliciously” retaliated against her while she was on family medical leave.
The copy of the decision the mayor's office released on Wednesday afternoon, says the court granted the town's motion for summary judgment in the Family Medical Leave Act case.
"Since Carbone has not established that she suffered an adverse employment action, she has failed to establish a prima facie case of FMLA retaliation. Consequently, her FMLA retaliation claim, which is the only claim in this action, fails," the court decision says.
In a statement, East Haven Town Attorney Joseph Zullo said, "We are delighted that the federal court has vindicated the Town's action, upholding the Town's argument that Ms. Carbone's claims of interference, wrongdoing, and coercion by both the Town and the Mayor were completely unsupported by the evidence in the record."
Maturo previously released a statement about the sexual harassment allegations and described Carbone as "a disgruntled employee who was on the verge of being terminated" and suggested that that might have motivated her first complaint.
"Today's victory, while certainly good news for the Mayor and the Town, is truly a victory for the taxpayers of East Haven, "Zullo said in the statement.
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"As a self-insured community, taxpayers pay dollar for dollar when the Town suffers an adverse verdict and I am proud that our legal team foreclosed the possibility of such a verdict in this case. Moving forward, we will continue to vigorously defend the Town in the two remaining Carbone suits and, of course, in all actions currently pending against the Town," Zullo added.
Carbone worked for the city from Jan. 25, 1997 until Oct. 17, 2014.
