STONE HARBOR – The case brought against the borough by its former administrator, Robert Smith, continues to make its way through the courts. In October 2023, Smith filed suit in Superior Court charging he was fired as borough administrator when he attempted to get two members of the Zoning Board of Adjustment to file required financial disclosures. One of the two was married to a sitting member of the borough’s governing body.
Now Smith is seeking to compel the deposition of Mayor Judith Davies-Dunhour. The motion by Smith’s attorney, Franklin Rooks Jr. of Morgan Rooks in Marlton, claims that the borough has engaged in an “unwarranted attempt to obstruct plaintiff’s legitimate efforts to depose” the mayor. Court records indicate that the motion to compel Davies-Dunhour’s deposition will be decided at a hearing Oct. 25.
Smith was fired at a special meeting of the Borough Council on Feb. 9, 2023. The council opted to fire him in accordance with a no-cause termination provision in his contract.
Smith filed a tort claim against the borough on May 8 for $1.2 million in damages and attorney fees. In that filing he claimed that the council acted at the urging of council member Jennifer Gensemer, who Smith alleged orchestrated his termination in retaliation for his efforts to get her husband, Harry Gensemer, a member of the borough’s Zoning Board, to file annually required financial disclosure forms that were seven months overdue.
Litigation followed when Smith filed his lawsuit against the borough on two separate counts, claiming breach of contract and violation of whistleblower status.
In May of this year Judge James Pickering Jr. dismissed Smith’s complaint alleging breach of contract, but he also denied a Stone Harbor request to dismiss the case’s count regarding the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, which protects employees who come forward to report illegal and fraudulent activities and employer commitments, commonly known as whistleblower protection.
Smith’s $1.2 million tort claim was followed by an $800,000 tort claim filed Aug. 29, 2023, by former Borough Clerk Kimberly Stevenson. Her filing charged that she was subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, causing her “severe anxiety, insomnia, and heart palpitations.” Her complaint also says she suffered loss of income, loss of future income and loss of pension income.
Councilwoman Gensemer is also listed as one of the “public entity parties causing injury” in the Stevenson claim, which has not yet been resolved.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
