A former administrative assistant for the City of Hartford’s Department of Development Services has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging a hostile work environment in which she was denied family and medical leave requests, assigned additional duties without compensation, denied job opportunities, and, finally, forced to resign after being accused of forging the mayor’s signature.
The twelve-count lawsuit filed by Nayra Martinez names the city, her former department directors, and the city’s Human Resources director as defendants, claiming FMLA interference and retaliation, libel and slander, denial of due process, and discrimination based on gender, race, and disability, among other counts.
According to the court complaint, Martinez was hired as an administrative assistant for the Economic Development division of the Department of Development Services in October of 2023, and in March of 2024, took over additional event planning duties with the understanding that she would be able to apply for the position of interim event marketing manager when it was posted.
However, after the manager position was posted, she was denied an interview, and the position was awarded to someone else.
“For approximately four months, Plaintiff performed the core duties of this higher-level position without additional pay or a title change,” the complaint says. “Ultimately, the Interim Event and Marketing Manager position was filled by individuals outside of Plaintiff’s protected class, and the Plaintiff was further minimized and isolated in her roles and responsibilities within the Department. This denial of promotion occurred shortly after Plaintiff had engaged in protected activities – including raising grievances about her workload and seeking union representation – indicating a retaliatory and discriminatory motive.”
According to the court filing, after Martinez went to the union to grieve her lack of compensation for extra duties, she was stripped of all further responsibilities and told that she would now have to direct all her communications through a colleague.
Then, in August of 2024, she was locked out of all city offices and computer systems, brought in for a disciplinary hearing in which she was not allowed union representation, accused of “falsifying the Mayor’s signature on a document, and immediately suspended. Following a Loudermill hearing that included a union attorney, Martinez was allowed to return to work but was given no work to do: “For days, Plaintiff was essentially made to sit idle – management gave her no tasks at all, pointedly excluding her from meetings and communications.”
According to the court complaint, a final decision was reached by the city concluding that “she was guilty of the allegations,” and “Defendants formally placed the stigma of ‘insubordination’ and document falsification in Plaintiff’s employment record.”
“These false charges and the accompanying isolation inflicted severe damage on Plaintiff’s professional reputation and caused her intense humiliation,” attorney Patrick Jennings wrote. “The stigma also threatened her ability to find future employment, as she was being painted as an untrustworthy employee.”
When Martinez filed a formal grievance against this action through her union, she was immediately ordered to surrender her city laptop and placed on administrative leave again. Martinez claims in the court complaint that “a message was relayed” to her that the insubordination charge could be removed from her file if she withdrew her grievance.
“Plaintiff perceived this as extortion: the City was willing to scrub the false charge (an implicit admission it was unwarranted) only if she remained silent about the abuse she suffered,” Jennings wrote. “Plaintiff did not withdraw her grievance.”
Also, during this period, Martinez sought FMLA leave to care for her husband following surgery, but claims she was denied by the city, citing federal FMLA eligibility requiring twelve months of employment, whereas she had only been employed for five months. However, the one-year eligibility only applies to federal FMLA laws; Connecticut’s state FMLA law allows eligibility after three months: “to the extent state law protected Plaintiff’s leave request, the City ignored that as well.”
When Martinez again requested FLMA leave for her own surgery after twelve months’ employment, she alleges, the city “dragged its feet,” awarded the FMLA retroactively for two weeks, and then demanded that “she return to work earlier than her doctor had advised,” and “implied that if Plaintiff did not come back immediately, she could face termination.”
Following her return to work in January of 2025, Martinez claims she “reached her breaking point,” and resigned under duress – what the court complaint deems a “constructive discharge,” whereby the city created perpetual working conditions “so intolerable that any reasonable person in Plaintiff’s position would feel compelled to resign,” or continue to “endure unlawful treatment or being fired on false pretenses.”
According to the Hartford Courant, Martinez helped usher in the Pedal Pub franchise to Hartford, in which parties can pedal around the city while enjoying drinks. A posting of all positions and salaries by the Hartford Courant in 2025 shows Martinez as a member of the Hartford Municipal Employees Association and earning $53,650 per year.
Martinez’s posts on social media show her pushing a book she published recently and posting about the City of Hartford’s Bank Fair and the Raising of the Puerto Rican flag at city hall, both in 2024. The images also show Martinez with her hand and forearm in a cast following surgery in a post from August 2023.
Martinez is seeking a declaratory judgement that the practices the city engaged in violated state and federal law; an order enjoining the city and the named defendants from “engaging in such unlawful conduct toward employees in the future;” possible reinstatement; removal of the insubordination charge; monetary damages for loss of income and benefits, and punitive damages for “emotional pain and suffering, mental anguish, humiliation and damage to reputation.”
“Over the course of a year and a half, she had been subjected to escalating harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. She had been denied earned status and promotion, overworked without compensation, publicly maligned with false accusations, frozen out by supervisors, denied support in disciplinary proceedings, refused reasonable accommodations for her health, and punished for taking protected medical leave,” Jennings wrote. “The workplace became a toxic and hostile environment that no reasonable person could endure.”
Officials at the City of Hartford indicated they had not yet been served in this lawsuit and generally do not comment on pending litigation.
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