New York lawyer sued after company claims she ‘quietly resigned’ from her job

A US company has sued one of its former employees over allegations that she ‘quietly left’ her job while still collecting her $400,000 salary – a move that prompted the ex-employee to sue its own legal action in response.

New York-based personal injury litigation firm Napoli Shkolnik has filed a lawsuit against one of its former lawyers, Heather Palmore, accusing her of taking advantage of the company’s remote work options to promote her own practice. of attorneys, The Palmore Group PC.

In the New York Supreme Court filing, Napoli Shkolnik accused Palmore, who was the company’s lead attorney, of breach of contract, as well as breach of fiduciary duty of loyalty, assistance and support. encouraging breach of fiduciary duty of loyalty, prejudicial lying, unjust enrichment. , declaratory judgment and constructive trust.

Legal documents allege that “in pursuit of personal pecuniary gain” Palmore misrepresented his skills, experience and “book of business” in order to secure his job at Napoli Shkolnik.

The documents claim that once in the role, she “took advantage of the new remote work environment to ‘quietly quit’ her job and worked simultaneously for two law firms at once, both the plaintiff and the Defendant Palmore Law Group, in violation of his employment contract and New York law”.

The workplace trend of “silent resignation” has become extremely popular lately and is essentially a rejection of the idea that work should take over your life and that you, as an employee, should go to the beyond your role.

Instead, people who follow the trend are encouraged to do the bare minimum by only performing the tasks outlined in their job description and politely refusing to take on more responsibility outside of that or work more hard work. hours as necessary.

The lawsuit referred to the silent abandonment and remote working of multiple jobs as “trends” in the workplace that the law firm says Palmore “wrongly joined.”

Napoli Shkolnik claimed that despite ‘one of the biggest draws in the entire company’, the ex-employee was doing ‘little or no work’ while ‘competing directly’ with the company by leading and running promoting Palmore Law Group, PC

“These actions were in direct breach of his employment contract, in violation of his fiduciary duty of loyalty to Napoli Shkolnik and intended to enrich himself at the expense of Napoli Shkolnik,” the lawsuit said.

As a result, the law firm is seeking to repay Palmore the more than $400,000 in compensation she allegedly received from the company during her “period of disloyalty.”

The lawsuit also seeks pre- and post-judgment interest, attorneys’ fees, putative damages and monetary damages.

Napoli Shkolnik alleged computer records show there were days when Palmore was active on her computer for “mere minutes”, including the “overwhelming majority of working days in 2023”.

This is despite the fact that the lawyer allegedly submitted daily time sheets “falsely stating that she spent hours conducting legal research and writing and ‘describing’ documents”.

“Shockingly, in some instances, Palmore fabricated and submitted blatantly false daily time slips indicating that she had already completed a full day of work before business hours,” the lawsuit states.

The company also accused Palmore of trying to ‘extort money from the company’ once his ‘plan’ was uncovered by ‘making false and defamatory statements of discrimination directed against ‘others’ without any factual basis”.

However, Palmore tells a very different story of how the situation unfolded, filing her own lawsuit just days after her ex-employer claimed she was “subjected to and witnessed blatant discrimination on race and disability by senior management”.

In the lawsuit, Palmore calls her bosses ‘rude bullies’ and alleged the company began retaliating against her after she complained of racial discrimination in 2022, treating her as a ‘complete outcast’ ever since. and “enemy”.

“SP. Palmore had the courage to speak out against discrimination within the cabinet and was forced to suffer for it, with Napoli’s preventive lawsuit filed against her – the latest in a series of ongoing acts of retaliation,” declares the lawsuit.

Palmore also hit back at claims that she had “quietly resigned”, with court documents calling it one of the company’s “countless outright lies”.

The lawyer instead claimed that she had “lost” access to the company’s network a day after Napoli Shkolnik received a letter from a lawyer and learned that Palmore had retained the services of a lawyer because she intended to file claims against the company in December.

“It is illogical to suggest that Ms. Palmore could take advantage of a remote work system to which she did not have access,” the complaint states, adding that she had to work daily, in person, at the office. ‘business.

Palmore seeks an undetermined amount of damages from his former employer.

Attorney representing Palmore, David Gottlieb, told Law.com that Napoli Shkolnik only filed his “completely fictitious preventive lawsuit” after his client raised “serious allegations of discrimination against the firm and prepared to file his own action.

“This pre-trial is a transparent and misguided attempt to try to gain a perceived strategic advantage, but it is obviously an act of blatant retaliation,” he said in a statement.

“We will be moving forward with Palmore’s trial at an expedited time, which will include claims based on this retaliatory conduct.”

Lawyer representing Napoli Shkolnik, Lucas Markowitz, told the same publication that Palmore’s case continues his “pattern of misrepresentation in his effort to undermine the company for money”.

“It is precisely these types of outlandish lies that undermine the real claims of discrimination and hurt the real victims of unlawful employer conduct. Palmore is happy to sacrifice these victims to line its own pockets,” he said.