She says she raised health concerns four times — then lost 85% of her role
K&L Gates is being sued for allegedly firing an IT manager just 32 days after she returned from approved disability leave.
The suit, filed April 6 in the Western District of Pennsylvania (Carter v. K&L Gates LLP, No. 2:26-cv-00577), lays out a timeline that should give any HR professional pause. Bonnie Carter worked as Manager of Endpoint Engineering in the firm's IT division starting in March 2023. She received positive performance reviews in December 2023 and December 2024, with no negative feedback from her direct supervisor, IT Director Kurt Johnson.
The trouble, according to the filing, began when Harpreet Suri joined K&L Gates as Chief Information Officer in August 2023. The suit alleges Suri told staff that "everyone she has encountered in the IT department is generally lazy and gets paid too much" and routinely yelled and screamed at employees while making threats about their job security. Carter says the environment grew so toxic it caused her to develop generalized anxiety disorder and irritable bowel syndrome.
Between January and September 2025, Carter says she raised the issue with Johnson on at least four separate occasions, telling him the workplace was making her sick. The filing alleges he listened but did nothing meaningful about it.
On September 10, 2025, Carter's physician mandated she take leave. She applied for and was granted short-term disability leave through...
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