She had three agencies to choose from – and picked the only wrong one

Where your employees sit can decide whether a discrimination case is ever heard – or dies on a technicality.

A Pennsylvania appeals court made that point on May 29, 2026, tossing a worker's harassment and discrimination suit because she went to the wrong agency first.

Gabriella Liberatore worked from her Philadelphia home as a customer service representative for iSolutions Payments, an Indiana company with fewer than ten employees. She was its only Pennsylvania employee. The company ended her employment in April 2024.

Liberatore took her case to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the state's discrimination agency. She alleged that iSolutions discriminated against her based on sex, subjected her to a hostile work environment, and retaliated against her for protected activity. She also cross-filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Both agencies dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The state agency said the company did not have four or more employees in Pennsylvania; the EEOC said it did not have fifteen or more. Neither agency ever weighed the merits of her claims.

A third door was open the whole time. The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations enforces the city's Fair Practices Ordinance, which covers any employer with even one employee in Philadelphia. That plainly described iSolutions. It was the only agency that could actually investigate what...

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