Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetToday the Senate passed S. 510 the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which imposes stricter food safety standards and grants the Food and Drug Administration greater authority to regulate tainted food.  The FMSA was prompted in part by numerous instances of fatal food contamination that revealed insufficient regulation and oversight of food production, including [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ordered CMM Realty, Inc., a real estate management company located in Columbia, South Carolina, to reinstate an employee and award him backpay with interest.  The company had fired the employee following his complaints about the asbestos at the condominium where he worked – a [...]

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TweetD.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ruled in Davis v. District of Columbia that procedural aspects of the 2009 amendments to the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act (DC WPA) retroactively apply to cases filed before the amendments’ enactment. In particular, Judge Edelman held: While substantive laws create or impair substantive rights, procedural laws generally only “relate [...]

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TweetAs reported in a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, the DOJ has recovered $3 billion in taxpayer dollars under the False Claims Act.  Its press release states: Most of the cases resulting in recoveries were brought to the government by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act, the federal government’s primary weapon in the battle [...]

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TweetIn an article about the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Wall Street Journal quotes Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, regarding defense counsels’ complaint that SEC rules do not prevent a whistleblower from both collecting an award under the SEC whistleblower reward program and also seeking compensation through a securities [...]

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TweetIn an article in today’s Wall Street Journal and in a Wall Street Journal blog post, Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, was quoted regarding new regulations proposed by the SEC for its Whistleblower Reward Program: “Whistleblowers should not be required to go to their companies first,” said Jason Zuckerman….  [He] didn’t [...]

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TweetA sign that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seriously committed to routing out corporate fraud, the SEC has set aside $450 million to fund its whistleblower reward program, which was established under The Dodd-Frank Act.  The SEC must reward whistleblowers who file complaints that lead to the recovery of funds.  The Dodd-Frank Act [...]

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TweetIn an ADA and FMLA action, a former-Baker & McKenzie LLP associate succeeded in shielding his records of mental health treatment.  Judge Jeffrey Cole held that where a discrimination plaintiff seeks damages for “garden variety” emotional distress and has not put his mental state at issue, i.e., by seeking damages for “severe” emotional distress or [...]

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TweetIn McNerney v. Lockheed Martin Operations Support, Inc., the court held that a whistleblower alleging wrongful termination in violation of the public policy promulgated under the False Claims Act does not have to show that the fraud she disclosed actually resulted in a loss to the government.  Judge Kays noted that that “the public policy [...]

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TweetJason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group®, will moderate a D.C. Bar Brown Bag titled “Dodd-Frank Act: Robust Protections and Substantial Rewards for Whistleblowers” on November 9, 2010.  The panel of speakers will discuss: The whistleblower reward provisions; The scope of the new whistleblower ant-retaliation provisions; The amendments to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Fourth Circuit’s decision in U.S. ex rel. Radcliffe v. Purdue Pharma LP where the court ruled that an employment release signed by the relator before filing a qui tam action bars that action if the government had specific knowledge of the fraud prior to [...]

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