Comment by joecool1029
1 month ago
I don't know legally how it works, but my gut says if this is found to be a wrongful termination under state/local/FMLA, then it also stands to reason that this could also be a wrongful death. From 1960, but it covers this line of thinking wrt suicide: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
Anyway here's the actual complaint (I read it after I wrote the above), I guess her parents/counsel thought the same thing: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docInde...
Thank you for finding this, really helpful. I checked PACER and didn't realize it was filed in state court instead.
The complaint is speaking and it is aggressively written and, to my non-lawyer mind, pretty well drafted. If I were Mongo, I would be trying aggressively to settle this and make it go away.
If I were the parents, I would be trying very hard to force any other outcome, preferably one where Mongo pays the biggest public relations price possible for what they've done, assuming the allegations are true.
The way Mongo answers the complaint will be really instructive in figuring out how they intend to play this, and in whether they think there is some explanation that will make this seem less dire.
(For anyone looking now, the case has been removed to federal court for the moment. Caption "Surman, by and through the Administrators of her Estate, Gregory Surman and Karen Connolly et al v. MONGODB, INC.", 2026cv00166 in SDNY.)
Unfortunately, it’s not as strong a case as you’d think. One of three cases has to be true: either she was disabled and unable to work, disabled but able to fulfill job duties, or not disabled at all.
In the first case Mongo can likely fire her once FMLA is up (notice that the termination is 12 weeks after she started leave). Disabilities aren’t protected if they leave you unable to perform job duties, which is what Mongo will claim. Notice how the complaint tries to say additional leave is “reasonable accommodation”. Mongo will claim not working at all means you’re not fulfilling job duties and that she used up her FMLA.
In theory if you become unable to do your job due to disability you should get disability insurance, which is mandatory in NY, but it sounds like Prudential rejected the claim, hence the letter from the doctor there.
In the latter two cases, then Mongo will claim that she could come back to work and asking her to was not violating any ADA laws, and that they would have been willing to make e.g. scheduling accommodations for any treatments and so on to accommodate a disability that doesn’t prevent her from fulfilling core job duties.
If you’re doing a restructuring of the company, i.e. mass layoffs, you’re allowed to do it regardless. In some states FMLA/PFMLA a company is automatically presumed a retaliation firing if it’s done within 6 months and the onus is on the company to prove it wasn’t—-the mass layoff is the cover, and large companies know it.
However, the fact that they cancelled her health insurance a week before returning and demanded she returned on a certain date or she’d be terminated despite a demonstrated disability, that’s pretty whack and might be hard to defend as company-wide restructuring.