Have you ever wondered how age discrimination can stealthily undermine a stellar career? Join Mark Carey as he unpacks the gripping story of Lisa Stashak, a 58-year-old sales executive who generated an astounding $186 million for Freesia, Inc. while navigating the murky waters of remote work from Maryland. After a corporate restructuring in 2018, Lisa found herself at the center of an alleged ageist culture that systematically targeted employees over 40. As the only high-performing exception, she became the unwitting victim of age discrimination, facing pay cuts, demotions, and a toxic work environment dominated by younger supervisors. This episode dives deep into the legal intricacies of constructive discharge and age discrimination, revealing how Lisa’s role was diminished despite her extraordinary contributions.
As remote work becomes the norm, we also explore the implications for employee rights and the vulnerabilities that remote workers face under current labor laws. Lisa’s state claims were dismissed due to her remote work status, raising critical questions about the protection of employee rights in an increasingly digital workplace. What does this mean for you? Tune in as we discuss the complexities of employment discrimination, the challenges of navigating workplace policies, and the importance of understanding your legal rights in the face of workplace issues like hostile work environments and retaliation.
This episode of Employee Survival Guide® is not just about one woman’s struggle; it’s a clarion call for all employees to advocate for their rights and navigate the murky waters of employment law. With insights into severance negotiation, workplace dynamics, and the ever-evolving landscape of employee empowerment, you’ll gain valuable knowledge to help you survive and thrive in your career.
Don’t miss this opportunity to arm yourself with the tools and strategies needed to combat age discrimination and other forms of workplace injustice. Whether you’re dealing with a toxic boss, negotiating a severance package, or simply trying to understand your employment rights, this episode is packed with essential information and insider tips. Join us as we challenge the status quo and empower you to take control of your career and workplace experience. The future of employment protections is in your hands!
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For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.
Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.
Transcript:
Speaker #0
Hey, it’s Mark here. Welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about and a lot more.
Speaker #1
Welcome to another episode of the Employee Survival Guide produced by employment attorney Mark Carey.
Speaker #2
Glad to be here for this one. It is it’s a really intense case today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it really is. And I want to welcome you, the listener. to the conversation today. Because, you know, as the modern workplace evolves, especially with remote work and all these shifting generational dynamics, navigating your rights can feel like, I don’t know, like walking a tightrope.
Speaker #2
Oh, absolutely. A legal tightrope where the safety net is maybe not actually there.
Speaker #1
Right. Exactly. So let’s get right into our topic overview. Today, we are looking at the case of Lisa Staszek versus Freesia, Inc. And just to set the scene for you, imagine this. You are a 58-year-old superstar sales executive.
Speaker #2
A total rainmaker.
Speaker #1
A total rainmaker. You are operating remotely from your home in Maryland for this healthcare technology company, which is based in New York. You bring in a staggering $186 million for them.
Speaker #2
Which is just, I mean, an unfathomable amount of money for one person to generate. Right.
Speaker #1
$186 million. You help the company go public. And then after all of that, you find yourself allegedly targeted. by this youth-obsessed corporate culture.
Speaker #2
Yeah, and that is where the whole thing just explodes.
Speaker #1
It does. So our mission for this episode is to really dissect the anatomy of an employment discrimination lawsuit.
Speaker #2
Right.
Speaker #1
We are going to examine the specific facts of Stockshack’s amended complaint. We’ll look at the employer’s defensive response. And then we have to talk about this crucial January 2026 federal court decision.
Speaker #2
Judge Furman’s decision. Yeah,
Speaker #1
which draws this incredibly hard line on remote work and state labor laws. It’s wild. But let’s start with section one, the golden goose and the 2018 purge.
Speaker #2
The purge. Yeah, that word alone tells you a lot.
Speaker #1
So Stonchek was hired back in 2011. And like we said, she was a massive earner. Over her tenure, she generated that $186 million. But then we hit 2018 and the company goes through a transition.
Speaker #2
Which is, you know, corporate speak for a massive shakeup.
Speaker #1
Exactly. And according to the complaint, Freesia terminated every single employee over the age of 40 on the life science sales team. Every single one, except for Stoshek.
Speaker #2
Yeah. She was allegedly spared for one very specific reason. She was unmatched. I mean, she was far and beyond their most important employee, financially speaking.
Speaker #1
OK, let’s unpack this for a second, because I’m thinking of a survivor analogy here. Oh,
Speaker #2
survivor. OK, I like that.
Speaker #1
Right. Like, what does it feel like to be the last veteran on the island after a demographic purge? But also, if an employer is truly ageist. Why keep the oldest employee around at all?
Speaker #2
Oh, it’s a great question. And it comes down to laying a foundation for discriminatory animus, legally speaking.
Speaker #1
Animus rights.
Speaker #2
Right. Because you have to look at the economic reality. If the goal is a younger workforce, you still can’t just cut your primary revenue source overnight. The company needed her money.
Speaker #1
So they keep the golden goose, but get rid of everyone else.
Speaker #2
Exactly. And from a legal standpoint, a mass firing of older workers sets the contextual stage for her later individual claims. It demonstrates an alleged systemic preference for youth in the company culture. It shows a pattern.
Speaker #1
So surviving the purge was really just the beginning of a years-long squeeze, which leads us to how the company allegedly began dismantling her role. Section 2, which I’m calling Death by a Thousand Cuts, Demotions, and the Commission Squeeze.
Speaker #2
It really was a squeeze. The financial and structural changes between 2018 and 2024 were just brutal.
Speaker #1
Let’s talk about the money first. Her commission structure was slashed, right? Yeah. From 6% all the way down to 1.75%.
Speaker #2
Yeah, from 6% to 1.75%. That is a massive wealth transfer from the employee back to the company.
Speaker #1
And it was allegedly presented to her by senior VP David Linetsky as a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. Like, sign this or you’re out.
Speaker #2
Right. And it wasn’t just the money. In December 2022, they changed her title. She went from sales director to strategic advisor.
Speaker #1
Which sounds nice, but…
Speaker #2
But… It’s essentially a demotion in prestige. It removed her from leadership meetings. She’s no longer in the room where decisions are made.
Speaker #1
Wow. And then by February 2024, she’s left off key client accounts entirely. She’s literally told to take a backseat.
Speaker #2
Yeah, just completely sidelined. Now, to be fair, Freisha’s legal response denies that these actions were discriminatory.
Speaker #1
Right, the defendant’s answer. What did they say?
Speaker #2
They claim Stashek voluntarily agreed to her compensation terms and role changes across numerous agreements over those years. They’re basically saying, hey, she signed the paperwork.
Speaker #1
OK, but what does that all actually mean? If someone agrees to a massive pay cut, do they just lose the right to say it was discriminatory?
Speaker #2
Not necessarily. This brings in a really important legal concept called constructive discharge.
Speaker #1
Constructive discharge.
Speaker #2
Yeah. It happens when an employer intentionally makes a work environment so intolerable-like through humiliating demotions or extreme pay cuts that a reasonable person would feel compelled to resign.
Speaker #1
So they essentially force you to quit without actually firing you.
Speaker #2
Exactly. And courts recognize the tension here. There’s a big difference between an employee signing a contract because they genuinely agree to it. Thank you. And signing it out of absolute necessity because they are being squeezed out.
Speaker #1
Right. Because what’s your alternative? You lose your job.
Speaker #2
Exactly. But it wasn’t just about the money and the titles. The day-to-day culture allegedly became just as toxic.
Speaker #1
Which brings us to Section 3, the wolf pack and the culture of ageism. This part of the complaint is just wild.
Speaker #2
Oh, it really is. It focuses on her new younger supervisor, Danielle Lynch.
Speaker #1
Right. And there was this group chat. allegedly comprised solely of under 40 directors and associate directors, and they call themselves the Wolfpack.
Speaker #2
Yeah, the Wolfpack. And according to the complaint, they routinely complained about older generations in general and Stoshek specifically.
Speaker #1
The specific alleged comments are awful. Lynch allegedly told a co-worker she wanted to push Stoshek out because she’s, quote, getting too old and we pay her too much effing money.
Speaker #2
Unbelievable. And it wasn’t just Lynch. Younger employees were allegedly mocking 50-something middle-aged women on conference calls.
Speaker #1
And it bled into her professional evaluations, too, didn’t it?
Speaker #2
It did. In December 2023, Lynch gave Staszak an unfounded meeting expectations review.
Speaker #1
Even though she’s bringing in millions.
Speaker #2
Exactly. While the younger employees were all told they were exceeding expectations, it’s a classic tactic to build a paper trail against someone.
Speaker #1
But here’s where it gets really interesting to me. The July 2024 final straw. Lynch. She explicitly tells Staszak she wasn’t needed at the in-person New York City quarterly meeting. She claimed the other directors agree she shouldn’t be there.
Speaker #2
Right. And then Staszak finds out from another director that this was a complete lie.
Speaker #1
A total fabrication just to isolate her. And meanwhile, she’s actually having to step in and save the Novo Nordisk account because the younger employee who replaced her was failing.
Speaker #2
Oh, yeah. That detail is crucial.
Speaker #1
She saves the massive account, gets zero credit and gets lied to about a leadership meeting.
Speaker #2
What’s fascinating here is how all of this fits into the legal standard for a hostile work environment under the ADEA, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Speaker #1
Right, because being a bad boss isn’t necessarily illegal.
Speaker #2
Exactly. There’s a two-pronged test. The harassment must be objectively severe or pervasive, meaning a reasonable person would find it abusive, and subjectively severe, meaning the victim actually felt abused.
Speaker #1
So do minor incidents or bad jokes cross that line?
Speaker #2
Isolated jokes usually don’t. But when you combine explicit ageist comments in a group chat, weaponized performance reviews, lying to exclude an employee from meetings, and forcing her to do the work of a younger colleague without credit, that paints a picture of pervasive, severe harassment.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that’s not just a bad day at the office. That’s a campaign. Which brings us to the question, what happens when an employee finally breaks under all this pressure? That leads us to Section 4, the breaking point and the fight for commissions.
Speaker #2
The breaking point. So in 2024, Staszek finally informs Frisia she’s seeking alternative employment. She’s had enough.
Speaker #1
And in July 2024, Frisia offers her a separation agreement. But they do something incredibly aggressive. They only give her 24 hours to sign it.
Speaker #2
Which is a huge red flag. The complaint correctly notes that federal law, specifically the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, requires 21 days for employees over 40 to review waivers like this.
Speaker #1
21 days. And they gave her 24 hours.
Speaker #2
Right. And because she didn’t sign within that illegal 24-hour window, Frazier revoked the offer of three months’ salary.
Speaker #1
And it gets worse. They later revoked her commissions entirely. Stachak ultimately leaves in August 2024, and she is owed over $300,000 in commissions.
Speaker #2
$300,000.
Speaker #1
Yeah. From deals she had already closed through January 2024 with major pharma clients like Novo Nordisk, Dexcom, Avaradis, Curran, the deals were done.
Speaker #2
Now, in the defendant’s answer, Frisia admits she wasn’t paid, but they claim it was because Staszak breached restrictive covenants in her separation agreement.
Speaker #1
Wait, how does that work?
Speaker #2
They rely on an affirmative defense called the employee choice doctrine. Basically, they argue that she chose to breach her post-employment restrictions, so she forfeits the money.
Speaker #1
The hypocrisy alleged in the complaint is just staggering here. You have the CEO personally thanking her and wishing her well in an email, while the company is simultaneously withholding. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of her earned money.
Speaker #2
It’s a very aggressive tactic. But you see this a lot with severance agreements. Employers often use unvested stock or pending commissions as leverage.
Speaker #1
Like holding her own money hostage.
Speaker #2
Exactly. To force an employee into silence or compliance, they know an individual rarely has the resources to fight a massive corporation for that money.
Speaker #1
Well, she decided to fight. So the battle lines are drawn between the complaint and the employer’s answer. Which pivots us to Section 5, the court’s ruling specifically surviving the motion to dismiss on the federal claims.
Speaker #2
Right, because Frisia tried to get this whole thing thrown out immediately.
Speaker #1
This is Judge Jesse M. Furman’s January 30, 2026 decision. Frisia filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12b-6, and they tried to introduce all these extrinsic materials, like her past performance reviews.
Speaker #2
Yeah, they wanted the judge to look at outside evidence. But Judge Fuhrman refused to consider it at this early stage, which is the correct procedural move.
Speaker #1
And he ruled that Stachak’s federal claims under the ADEA survive.
Speaker #2
That’s a huge win for her at this stage. It comes down to the minimal inference standard for employment discrimination.
Speaker #1
What does that mean for the listener?
Speaker #2
It means at the motion to dismiss stage, a plaintiff doesn’t have to prove their whole case. They don’t need a smoking gun yet. They just have to show enough specific facts to make their claim of discrimination plausible.
Speaker #1
And with the Wolfpack chat and the 2018 purge, she definitely had enough facts.
Speaker #2
Oh, definitely. But Frisia also tried this highly technical argument. They argued the case should be dismissed because the EEOC issued a right to sue letter too early.
Speaker #1
Too early.
Speaker #2
Yeah, they said it was issued under 180 days, citing a case called Pritchard. This raises an important question about procedure, and it’s a bit of a legal nerd out moment.
Speaker #1
I love a good legal nerd out. Lay it on us.
Speaker #2
So the ADEA follows the rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA. It does not follow Title VII rules.
Speaker #1
Wait, really? I thought all discrimination fell under Title VII.
Speaker #2
Common misconception. Title VII covers race, sex, religion, things like that. But age discrimination is structurally different. Under the ADEA, a right to sue letter isn’t actually required at all to go to federal court.
Speaker #1
Oh. So Frege’s argument was just completely moot.
Speaker #2
Exactly. Judge Furman saw right through it.
Speaker #1
So she won.
Speaker #2
Well, let’s clarify that. Surviving a motion to dismiss is not the same as winning the lawsuit. It just means the judge isn’t throwing the case in the trash. It unlocks the door to the discovery phase.
Speaker #1
Right, where they can start demanding emails and taking depositions.
Speaker #2
Exactly.
Speaker #1
But, and this is a massive but, while she won the federal battle, the judge completely threw out half of her lawsuit based on a crucial modern workplace technicality. Which brings us to Section 6, the remote work trap and the dismissed state claims.
Speaker #2
This is the part that should terrify every remote worker listening right now. Seriously. So Judge Furman dismissed Stoschak’s state and city claims. That’s the New York state human rights law, the New York city human rights law, and the New York labor law claims.
Speaker #1
And that labor law claim was how she was trying to get her untaid commissions back.
Speaker #2
Right. And the reason he threw them out? Extra territoriality. Because Stoschak lived and worked remotely in Maryland.
Speaker #1
Yep. Despite the fact that Frisia is headquartered in New York City.
Speaker #2
Despite the fact that she regularly traveled to New York City for quarterly meetings and client visits.
Speaker #1
It didn’t matter. The New York laws require the discriminatory impact to be felt in New York. Or for the wage claims, the employee has to actually be laboring in New York.
Speaker #2
Wait, wait, wait. Her contract explicitly stated it was governed by New York law. How does New York law not apply to her if the contract says it does?
Speaker #1
It’s a brutal reality of state-level employment laws in a remote work world. A choice of law provision in a contract only governs the contract itself. It does not govern statutory discrimination claims.
Speaker #2
So if you sit in Maryland, you feel the impact in Maryland. Exactly. The New York legislature didn’t write those human rights laws to protect people in Maryland. So even though you work for a New York company, you can’t use New York’s anti-discrimination statutes to sue them.
Speaker #1
That is just wow. If you are a remote worker relying on the strong labor laws of the state where your company is headquartered, you might be in for a rude awakening if you ever need to sue.
Speaker #2
Absolutely. You think you have all these robust New York or California protections, but the reality is you only have the protections of the state where your desk chair is located.
Speaker #1
Which, if you live in a state with weak labor laws, means you are incredibly vulnerable.
Speaker #2
It’s a massive trap. And Judge Furman’s ruling just locked the door on those state claims for her.
Speaker #1
Wow. OK, so. Let’s briefly recap this incredible tension as we hit our outro. We have a highly lucrative employee caught in this alleged generational squeeze. She is fighting for her ADA rights on the federal level, and she survived that motion to dismiss. But she completely lost her state level protections and her New York wage claims purely due to her remote status in Maryland.
Speaker #2
Yeah. And the case now moves to discovery with a pretrial conference scheduled for February 25, 2026.
Speaker #1
which is going to be fascinating to watch. But I want to leave you, the listener, with a final provocative thought to ponder. We are rapidly shifting to a borderless digital workplace. You can generate $180 million for a company through a laptop in your living room. But if our employment protections are still strictly chained to physical geography and state lines, are we inadvertently creating a massive legal blind spot that leaves millions of remote workers completely unprotected?
Speaker #2
It is a question that the courts and, honestly, the legislatures are going to have to answer very soon.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Well, stay curious, stay informed. And we’ll catch you on the next episode.
Speaker #0
If you like the Employee Survival Guide, I’d really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that’s informative, that’s timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment. So if you’d like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so. And leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I’ll keep it up. I’ll keep the standards up. I’ll keep the information flowing at you. If you’d like to send me an email and ask me a question, I’ll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to mcarey@capclaw.com. That’s CAPCLaw.com.