A woman is suing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, alleging she was wrongfully terminated from her job as director of pre-planning for Catholic cemeteries in 2023 on the false allegation that she violated her employer's anti-nepotism policy by not reporting that she was supervising her niece-in-law.

Paula Rathgaber-Gomez's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit states that she had told management about her supervision even though the nepotism rule only applied to immediate family members. The plaintiff also maintains she lost her job 70 days before her pension was set to vest.

Rathgaber-Gomez seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in her complaint brought Tuesday, which alleges wrongful termination, retaliation, failure to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said the organization has not been served and does not comment on pending litigation.

According to the suit, the archdiocese has a "vague" anti-nepotism policy stating that supervision of one employee over an immediate family member may create a conflict of interest. Rathgaber-Gomez opposed the rule in the way it was being applied to two employees who the archdiocese allegedly was trying to terminate, despite the fact they were not relatives from the same immediate family, the suit states.

After Rathgaber-Gomez filed a complaint on behalf of the two co-workers, they were separated but not fired, the suit states. However, in December 2022, the plaintiff was called to a meeting with human resources and accused of violating the same anti-nepotism policy as the two others by her supervision of her niece-in-law, also not an immediate family member, the suit states.

Rathgaber-Gomez was fired a month later and told she should have disclosed her relationship with her niece-in-law, which the plaintiff says she did when the woman was hired four years earlier, according to the suit.

Rathgaber-Gomez contends she lost her job for standing up against what she believed were discriminatory workplace practices, according to the suit, which further states that she has suffered emotional distress, embarrassment and humiliation.