New Jersey LAD Protection Does Not Apply to Plaintiff's EPL Claim

Obtained summary judgment in an EPL matter where the plaintiff, a former employee of the defendant company, claimed that she was terminated because of her age in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 105-12. The defendant company had an office in New Jersey, but the plaintiff worked out of her home in Massachusetts. According to the defendant, in the seven years prior to her termination, she had not traveled to New Jersey for any work-related reason. The plaintiff claimed to have attended two meetings in New Jersey between 2003 and 2005, each lasting two days, and the last work-related contact the plaintiff claimed she had with the state of New Jersey occurred in 2008 when she supposedly attended a retirement dinner and a “breakfast meeting” with one other person. The court agreed with the defendant’s arguments in its motion for summary judgment that the LAD protected New Jersey residents and that the plaintiff’s limited contacts with the state did not afford her the statute’s protections.