Paralegal alleges she was fired for declining lawyer’s abortion offer

A Charlotte lawyer sued his former paralegal for defamation over a message she posted on social media after she was fired. And she responded with counterclaims alleging she was canned for refusing to have an abortion.

Bob Karney, who heads an eponymous motorcycle injury law practice, said he fired paralegal Jessica Magliocca in March because she was always late, behind on her work and disruptive during the four months she worked for his firm.

“As soon as you get into your office she gets up and comes into your office and starts talking,” Karney said in an interview. He added that Magliocca had given herself the nickname “Chatty Tardy.”

Karney has stressed that he had no involvement in Magliocca’s pregnancy — he believes her estranged husband is the father — and Magliocca has not alleged that she and Karney had intimate relations.

After other paralegals told him Magliocca was several weeks behind on her work and had been refusing to answer client calls because she’d become consumed by her personal life, Karney said he decided to give her one more chance before he showed her the exit.

“And sure enough she was 40 minutes late” the next day, he said.

“He says he fired her for those things,” said Magliocca’s attorney, Chris Strianese of Strianese Huckert in Charlotte. “But he can’t avoid the fact that he fired her mere days after she told him she was pregnant and it’s a striking coincidence to us that all of those performance problems that they’re now talking about apparently weren’t a reason to fire my client until she announced her pregnancy.”

In the wake of her termination, Magliocca allegedly wrote in a Facebook post that she had told Karney she was pregnant and he responded by offering to pay for an abortion and give her “time off to heal.”

“I refuse and I got fired today,” she wrote. “Definitely not my week but I refuse to work for anyone that tells me to kill my baby. You’d think working for a lawyer they’d have more common sense! If anyone is hiring let me know!”

Karney filed a defamation suit against Magliocca in Mecklenburg County Superior Court in April. He had sought more than $25,000 in punitive and compensatory damages. But he voluntarily dismissed the suit on Sept. 13, after he said Magliocca deleted the Facebook post.

“We wanted that post taken down because it was inaccurate,” he said. “She knew why she was fired. We gave her a lengthy explanation.”

Karney and his law partner, Sean Clayton, have six female colleagues who work as paralegals, legal assistants and marketers, according to the firm’s website. Karney said one of the women recently returned from more than two months of fully paid maternity leave. He added that several staffers have given birth over the years and “nobody has ever lost their job.”

“In fact, I let the paralegals bring their kids to work when they don’t have a babysitter” he added. “That’s how absurd this is.”

Now, Karney and his attorney, Robert Hanner of the Dozier Miller Law Group in Charlotte, have asked a Mecklenburg County judge to dismiss Magliocca’s counterclaims for wrongful discharge and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Her complaint was sent to Lawyers Weekly in a package without a return address.

“I see this as a last minute panic attempt to settle this case, and I am not going to settle this case under any circumstance,” Karney said. “We are not paying her one dime.”

Meanwhile, Magliocca and Strianese argue that Karney is liable for compensatory, punitive and emotional distress damages, along with attorneys’ fees and costs, because his “conduct has been outrageous, repugnant, and beyond all bounds of decency.”

She alleged in her countersuit that Karney fired her two days after she declined to abort her pregnancy. She also asserted that her termination “follows a long history of Karney’s disrespectful and discriminatory conduct toward women.”

Karney’s firm publishes a promotional biker girl calendar featuring “scantily clad women,” and images of “scantily clad women were routinely shown on the television screens in [the law firm’s] lobby, where clients, prospective clients, and employees were forced to come into contact with them,” according to Magliocca.

She alleged that Karney keeps G-strings, thongs and other “assorted items of inappropriate clothing” for the firm’s biker girl calendars in an office closet that employees use.

While Magliocca asserts that she found the calendar offensive, Karney said she asked twice if she could be in the calendar and was rejected both times. Karney added that his wife, Ginger, the firm’s marketing director, shoots the photos for the calendar.

“It’s very tastefully done,” he said.

Strianese balked at Karney’s assertion that Magliocca had asked to be in the calendar, saying he “can’t imagine that it’s true.”

“The fact that this person is publicly defending his decision to use that as marketing material, and saying that his biker girl shoots are ‘tastefully done’ really speaks for itself and tells you everything you need to know about these issues,” he said. He added that he asked for a copy of the calendar during discovery and said Karney refused the request.

“Despite it being so tastefully done,” Strianese said, “the other side refused to provide it and we’re going to have to move the court to compel them to do so.”

Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @NCLWBantz