A Connecticut Post reporter whose discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper’s parent company was tossed out of court in May has appealed the decision.
The reporter, Anne Amato, long a fixture in the lower Naugatuck Valley, said in the lawsuit that she and a handful of other long-serving reporters were put on “personal improvement plans” and threatened with termination.
But a judge ruled that Amato’s complaint could not proceed in court. The reporter did not show how she had been “harmed,” the judge said.
“Because the plaintiff has not alleged that she suffered any adverse employment action … the plaintiff has not pleaded the elements of a prima facie case of age discrimination,” Judge Matthew Frechette wrote in the ruling May 8.
Click here to read more about the judge’s decision.
Click here to read more background about the lawsuit.
About a month after Judge Frechette handed down his decision, Amato filed notice that she would appeal his ruling to the state’s Appellate Court.
Amato declined to comment on the lawsuit last month, referring questions to her lawyer, John Williams.
Williams has not yet filed a brief with the Appellate Court fully detailing the grounds for the appeal.
But in a “preliminary statement of issue” filed with the court, he alleged that Judge Frechette “erred in holding that the definition of an ‘adverse employment action’ under the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act is identical to that adopted by some federal courts interpreting the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.”
Williams said last month that further developments won’t happen for weeks, at least.
“Generally in civil appeals the court schedules a pre-argument conference and the briefs are due 45 days after that,” Williams wrote in an e‑mail. “I am guessing that the conference will be in September.”
