The town of East Haven has reached an agreement with an employee who accused town officials of retaliating against her for taking family medical leave to care for her injured daughter, according to a statement from the town attorney.
Former Department of Housing and Urban Renewal secretary Francine Carbone, who worked for the city from Jan. 25, 1997 until Oct. 17, 2014, filed a sexual harassment complaint against the mayor and also filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court alleging town officials “intentionally, wantonly and maliciously” retaliated against her while she was on family medical leave.
East Haven Town Attorney Joseph Zullo released a statement through the mayor’s office Wednesday that said the town’s legal team negotiated the agreement over the federal wage and overtime and state court lawsuits “that threatened to drain the Town’s coffers and rip apart the fiber of our community.”
The agreement includes remitting $175,000 to Carbone and provides her with medical benefits until she is 65 and “an inexpensive supplement thereafter,” which Zullo wrote she would have received had her employment not ended in 2014.
“The compromise represents a conclusion to all of Mrs. Carbone’s employment and non-employment claims against the Town and which have been pending since 2015,” the statement from Zullo says.
In July 2016, a federal court sided with the town.
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"Since Carbone has not established that she suffered an adverse employment action, she has failed to establish a prima facie case of FMLA retaliation. Consequently, her FMLA retaliation claim, which is the only claim in this action, fails," the court decision released in July 2016 said.
Zullo's statement about the agreement announced Wednesday says, “Although we are confident that we would have prevailed in both the federal wage and overtime case and today’s state court proceedings, absent this morning’s favorable settlement, the Town could have found itself mired in costly, protracted litigation and appeals for years to come as any judgment in favor of the Town and Mayor would have been appealed by Mrs. Carbone.” Zullo’s statement says.
"Today’s global compromise, which will be memorialized in a formal settlement agreement in the coming days, will contain no admission of liability as to any of Mrs. Carbone’s claims, all of which both the Town and the Mayor vehemently continue to deny,” the statement goes on to say.
