St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court-elect Jessica Brewster is suing her former employer, the northshore District Attorney’s Office, claiming that she was illegally fired because she ran for elected office last year.
Brewster beat incumbent Clerk of Court Melissa Henry last October and takes office in July. In her lawsuit, Brewster says former 22nd Judicial District Attorney Warren Montgomery fired her after first trying to persuade her not to run for clerk.
Brewster’s lawsuit, filed in December in federal court in New Orleans, names Collin Sims as defendant in his capacity as interim district attorney. Sims took over as interim DA following Montgomery’s death in November after a yearslong battle with cancer.
Jessica Jenkins Brewster
Sims is campaigning to take over the remaining three years of his former boss’ term. He faces Covington lawyer Vincent Wynne in the March 23 special election.
Sims referred comment to Tim Madden, an attorney representing the DA’s office in the lawsuit. Madden did not immediately respond.
Brewster joined the DA’s office in 2004, working in the Bond and Asset Forfeiture Division, under former DA Walter Reed. She continued in that position when Montgomery won the office after a bruising campaign in 2014.
Brewster’s suit says she met with Montgomery in May 2022 to tell him she planned to run for clerk in October 2023. She says Montgomery suggested she “discuss the idea with her family and pray about it,” and told her that she would be allowed to keep her assistant DA job until qualifying for the election, which was from Aug. 8-10 last year.
That was in keeping with the office’s policy when other assistants had run for elected office, the suit says.
However, Brewster’s suit says, Montgomery also advised Brewster that she would not be rehired should she lose the election. Brewster’s suit says that was not standard office practice; she named three male assistant district attorneys who were hired back after unsuccessful runs for elected office.
Then in a meeting on Dec. 12, 2022, nine months before qualifying, Montgomery fired Brewster, telling her that Henry was a friend and political ally, the suit says.
“You candidacy is incompatible with the need to protect and preserve the integrity of the District Attorney’s Office,” the suit quotes from the termination notice form given to Brewster.
Brewster says in the suit that she had not spent any “significant time campaigning at all” prior to her termination. She said the decision to run for clerk did not interfere with her assistant DA duties.
The suit says Sims told Brewster he would ask Montgomery to rehire Brewster if she did not run.
The suit says Brewster sustained emotional distress by the firing, as well as lost wages. It seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Contacted Friday, Brewster declined to comment on the lawsuit.
