In A Novel Ruling, New Jersey Appellate Court Hints That Telecommuters Working Outside The State For A New Jersey Employer May Be Entitled To The Protections Of The NJLAD

In its recent decision in Trevejo v. Legal Cost Control, Inc., the Appellate Division signaled that the anti-discrimination protections of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) may be applied extraterritorially to employees who are not inhabitants of New Jersey, who do not come into the State to perform any services, but who provide services to a New Jersey employer exclusively via a remote computer.

Susan Trevejo worked for Legal Cost Control, a New Jersey corporation located in Haddonfield, NJ. Trevejo was not a resident of New Jersey, and during her tenure with Legal Cost performed all of her job duties from her home computer in Massachusetts. Following her termination, Travejo filed an age discrimination claim against Legal Cost under NJLAD, and the company responded with a motion for summary judgment on the ground that Travejo was not an “inhabitant” of the State entitled to pursue an NJLAD claim.

Reversing the lower court’s grant of summary judgment, the appellate court found the dismissal of the claim premature. The court noted that the statutory language of the NJLAD consistently extends to “any person.” Conversely, the term “inhabitants” only appeared in the legislative preamble, not the substantive provisions of the statue; thus, limiting the NJLAD’s protections to “inhabitants” of the State would be an overly restrictive reading of a statute that must be broadly construed to achieve its goal of “the eradication of the cancer of discrimination in the workplace.”

As a result, plaintiff Travejo was entitled to pursue additional discovery relevant to her contacts with New Jersey while working for Legal Cost, evidence that might demonstrate that she was entitled to the protection of the NJLAD. This discovery includes matters such as the locale where Travejo’s colleagues worked; the nature of the software used by Travejo to conduct her work, the location of the company’s server and service provider, and the location of the individuals who made the termination decision and the basis for their decision.

With the need for physical presence in the workplace increasingly diminishing, this case illustrates the challenges facing employers who employ remote employees, and the broad reach of protections that may be accorded to far-flung employees under our state laws well beyond the State’s boundaries.