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<\/a>By John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\nThe seven-count suit<\/a>, filed in Hudson County Superior Court last month during the last week of Mayor Steven Fulop\u2019s tenure, names the Jersey City Fire Department, Johnson, Fulop, and then-Public Safety Director James Shea, among others, as plaintiffs.<\/p>\n Zappella, who was promoted to deputy chief in November 2022<\/a>, said friction with the new chief, Johnson \u2013 who sworn in on August 1st, 2024<\/a> \u2013 began almost immediately and started to escalate the following month.<\/p>\n \u201cOn September 18, 2024, Defendant John Johnson sent an email to FDJC Local President [Joseph] Krajnik with the subject line of \u2018Disparaging remarks at your union meeting,\u201d the court filing contends.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this email, Defendant John Johnson states \u2018You should be very careful where and how you get your information. There are 3 Deputy Chiefs on the job that are spreading lies about me because I was made Chief and they were not. (we all know who they are). Trust me on this, you will see real soon what comes of them disparaging me. THEY ARE LYING AND THEY WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.\u201d<\/p>\n From this point forward, Zappella, through her attorney in the matter, Tracy Riley, a partner at Marlton-based law firm Riley & Riley LLC, claims that her work environment became increasingly hostile.<\/p>\n She also says, through the suit, that her responsibilities as deputy chief of training were made increasingly difficult \u201cwithout adequate training and support, with Johnson refusing to meet or contact her, also ignoring her phone calls.<\/p>\n To that end, Johnson allegedly sent out emails to the entire department, minus Zappella, about training opportunities as part of further efforts to undermine her authority, which also included asking her to perform work duties while out on medical leave between November 9th, 2024 and January 27th, 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cUpon information and belief, no male Deputy Chief out on medical leave has been required to continue to perform their job duties. Plaintiff Zappella was once again being discriminated against,\u201d the lawsuit asserts.<\/p>\n She also noted that she continued to be asked to perform duties outside the scope of her job duties after she was reassigned in the summer of 2025, further stating that she was also excluded from Field Training Officer Standard Operating Procedures.<\/p>\n \u201cOn June 9, 2025 at 1:51, Plaintiff Zappella reported in detail to Defendant Johnson the changes that he made to the SOP were in violation of the National Fire Protection Association,\u201d according to the court filing.<\/p>\n Zappella then allegedly followed up with Johnson asking if the firefighters taking the class would be paid overtime so they could arrive on time, the chief said no overtime would be issued and they would arrive to the class late.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the scheduled training for Engine 14 Ladder 7 was cancelled, once again \u201cundermining her authority by creating animosity towards Plaintiff.\u201d<\/p>\n After Johnson allegedly continued to ignore calls and emails from Zappella, she filed an employee relations complaint with the Jersey City Human Resources Department on July 1st, 2025, meeting with Acting EEO Officer Andrew DiChiara on July 23rd.<\/p>\n While additional responses and documentation were allegedly provided in August, Zappella did not hear anything further from DiChiara or human resources after that.<\/p>\n One of those submissions was a September 1st Facebook post by Johnson where he shared a video from the page \u201cPearl Things,\u201d which included several disparaging remarks about women such as \u201cyou don\u2019t have to be a lazy bimbo.\u201d<\/p>\n Zappella filed a second complaint with HR on September 15th, this time including Fulop on the email. This led to HR conducting two interviews with her regarding her complaint on October 16th and November 17th.<\/p>\n In between the two interviews, November 10th, a City of Jersey City Facebook video was posted highlighting her becoming the first female deputy chief for the city\u2019s fire department.<\/p>\n \u201cThis advertisement was placed on the Jersey City Official Government Facebook page knowing that Plaintiff was being discriminated against, subjected to disparate treatment, a hostile work environment, and having her position undermined and derailed,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\n Finally, Zappella claims that anonymous letters signed by firefighters from two unions \u2013 IAFF and PFANJ \u2013 attacking her and then-Corporation Counsel Brittany Murray dated September 10th but not distributed until November \u201ccontained defamatory comments.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter, which was attached as a court exhibit, claimed that Murray used her position to ensure Zappella became a deputy fire chief as soon as possible and the writing was addressed to the governor\u2019s office, state attorney general, Fulop, the City Council, and press (editor\u2019s note: HCV did not see a copy of the letter until today).<\/p>\n The lawsuit alleges a hostile work environment, unlawful retaliation, aiding and abetting, violation of the Conscientious Employee (whistleblower) Protection Act, violation of New Jersey\u2019s Civil Right Act, and defamation.<\/p>\n As a result, Zappella is seeking compensatory damages, economic damages injunctive and equitable relief, \u201ceveryday and daily stress caused by Defendant\u2019s illegal acts,\u201d punitive damages, attorneys\u2019 fees, costs of suit, and any other damages the court deems fair and just.<\/p>\n A city spokeswoman did not immediately return an email seeking comment, though the city does not typically comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jersey City Deputy Fire Chief Constance Zappella has filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination and civil rights violations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,60203,60204,60205,60206,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-143463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-constance-zappella","tag-hudson-county-superior-court","tag-jersey-city-fire-department","tag-john-johnson","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}