{"id":104633,"date":"2026-02-04T06:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/104633\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T06:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T06:47:09","slug":"former-northampton-county-custody-masters-retaliation-lawsuit-is-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/104633\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Northampton County custody master\u2019s retaliation lawsuit is dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Northampton County custody master\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> against the county\u2019s president judge and court administrator was dismissed Monday by a federal judge.<\/p>\n

Lisa Tresslar claimed she was forced to resign<\/a> in retaliation for statements she made about policy and procedural changes in family court<\/a>, but U.S. District Court Judge John M. Gallagher disagreed and threw out the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disappointed with the court\u2019s decision, and we do intend to file an appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals,\u201d wrote Tresslar\u2019s attorney, Sidney L. Gold, in an email Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tresslar\u2019s lawsuit said she spoke out against family court changes she felt were unfair, diminished her role and left her with no choice but to resign on Oct. 14, 2023.<\/p>\n

Judge Gallagher said Tresslar\u2019s comments in a letter to the Northampton County Family Law Committee, in a meeting with that committee and in a meeting with the Judicial Conduct Board were not protected under her First Amendment right to free speech.<\/p>\n

She made the derogatory comments in her capacity as the custody master, not as a private citizen, according to Gallagher. She shared knowledge only a custody master would have, not a citizen, he ruled. So she can\u2019t claim those comments resulted in unfair retaliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCourts have consistently recognized that when a public employee frames a communication as institutional rather than personal, the speech … falls outside the protection of the First Amendment,\u201d Gallagher wrote.<\/p>\n

Tresslar\u2019s two claims of sex and age discrimination were dismissed in June 2024, two months after the lawsuit was filed. Tresslar voluntarily withdrew a third claim, leaving only her First Amendment retaliation claim to be litigated. <\/p>\n

The county court, the county itself and Judges Paula Roscioli and Jennifer Sletvold were previously removed as defendants, leaving only Northampton County President Judge Craig Dally and Court Administrator Jermaine Greene as defendants until the lawsuit was dismissed Monday.<\/p>\n

Tresslar started her job as full-time custody master on Oct. 1, 2014, the lawsuit says. She lives in Williams Township.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Northampton County custody master\u2019s lawsuit against the county\u2019s president judge and court administrator was dismissed Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,50477],"class_list":["post-104633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-original-otr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}