{"id":968,"date":"2015-10-19T10:36:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T14:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events.lindabury.com\/?p=968"},"modified":"2025-02-05T11:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T16:23:44","slug":"new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In its recent landmark ruling in <em>State v. Saavedra<\/em>, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination and retaliation claims against the school could be criminally prosecuted for removing confidential school documents she claimed would aid her in pursuing those legal claims. This decision was somewhat of a surprise in light of the court\u2019s 2010 ruling in <em>Quinlan v. Curtiss-Wright Corp.<\/em>, that an employee\u2019s theft and use of confidential personnel documents to assist her discrimination lawsuit against her employer was protected activity under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD).<\/p>\n<p>The upshot if these two rulings is that while an employee who steals corporate documents may not necessarily be fired for doing so, they might be subject to criminal prosecution under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>The Facts:<\/u><\/strong> Ivonne Saavedra was a clerk for the North Bergen Board of Education (the Board) who filed suit against the Board alleging discrimination and retaliation claims in violation the LAD and the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA). During discovery, Saavedra produced over 350 documents, including original and copies of confidential documents in violation of Board policies. Many of the documents contained sensitive educational and medical information about students, information that the Board was prohibited from disclosing to third parties by federal and state law. The Board notified the Hudson County prosecutor who in turn secured an indictment against Saavedra for official misconduct and theft. Saavedra efforts to dismiss the indictment were unsuccessful at the trial and appellate level, and the Supreme Court affirmed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination and retaliation claims against the school could be criminally prosecuted for removing confidential school documents she claimed would aid her in pursuing those legal claims. This decision was somewhat of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[139],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-19T14:36:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-05T16:23:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2015-10-19T14:36:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-02-05T16:23:44+00:00","author":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html","name":"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents &#8212; October 19, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-10-19T14:36:28+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-05T16:23:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"description":"In its recent landmark ruling in State v. Saavedra, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a former school board employee who was pursing discrimination","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/new-jersey-supreme-court-confirms-employee-can-be-criminally-prosecuted-for-theft-of-employer-documents.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Insights","item":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"New Jersey Supreme Court Confirms Employee Can Be Criminally Prosecuted For Theft of Employer Documents"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Published by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/3f2ca7450f0195db092bccff4fb8982e","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C."},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com"]}]}},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1690,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}