A volunteer firefighter terminated after he made repeated complaints about his colleagues and superiors is not covered by New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act, a state appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The former firefighter, Jeffrey Sauter, cannot invoke CEPA’s protections since he received no actual wages or other remunerations from his longtime squad, the Colts Neck Volunteer Fire Co. No. 2, and cannot be considered to have been an “employee,” the three-judge Appellate Division panel ruled in a published opinion.
