Neither side of the employment bar had high praise for the decision by a divided New Jersey Supreme Court that employees can be criminally prosecuted for stealing or copying confidential documents from their employers to bolster their discrimination lawsuits.
In State v. Saavedra, the justices ruled 6-1 to uphold an Appellate Division decision that defendant Ivonne Saavedra could be prosecuted for theft and official misconduct for taking documents from her former employer, the North Bergen Board of Education, against which she had filed a lawsuit alleging that she was the victim of gender, sexual and ethnic discrimination.
