Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetOn February 5, 2013, D.C. Councilmember Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) presented the “False Claims Act of 2013” to the Committees on Finance and Revenue.  This bill would extend the current False Claims Act which fails to apply to violations of the tax code. The False Claims Act of 2013 would enable whistleblowers to receive [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, Managing Principal of the The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed by Federal Times, a weekly newspaper focused on providing insight into issues affecting U.S. government managers and other decision makers. On January 25, 2012, six current and former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employees filled a lawsuit in the [...]

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TweetAccording to a Department of Justice Press Release, Oracle Corp. and Oracle America Inc. have agreed to pay $199.5 million plus interest for failing to meet their contractual obligations to the General Services Administration (GSA). This settlement relates to a contract Oracle entered into in 1998 to sell software licenses and technical support to government [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group’s © Managing Principal R. Scott Oswald and former Principal Jason Zuckerman have published a whistleblower article in the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. Daily Labor Report titled “D.C.’s Amended Whistleblower Protection Act: The Gold Standard for Public Sector Whistleblower Protection.” The article highlights changes to Washington D.C.’s recently amended Whistleblower Protection [...]

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TweetIn Winder v. Erste, Judge John D. Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of whistleblower Alfred Winder, holding that the 2009 amendment to the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act should be applied retroactively to pending cases before the courts.  The amendment altered the governing statute of limitations [...]

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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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TweetAccording to the Washington Examiner, a D.C. jury awarded Sean McLaughlin damages for retaliation in violation of the DC Whistleblower Protection Act.  McLaughlin alleged D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, a district commander at the time, threatened police officers with “consequences” if they pursued their claims that the police department’s off-duty reimbursable overtime security detail at [...]

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TweetAccording to the Government Accountability Project’s blog, D.C. Superior Court Judge Leonard Braman held that a recent amendment to the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) exempting whistleblowers from the requirement of notifying the District of a claim within six months of the adverse employment action should apply retroactively.  Therefore, the notice requirement in D.C. Code [...]

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TweetMonday, the DC Council approved the Whistleblower Protection Amendment Act of 2009, which strengthens the DC Whistleblower Protection Act (DC Code § 1-615.51 et seq.) and The Employees of District Contractors and Instrumentality Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 (DC Code § 2-223.01 et seq.).  The Whistleblower Protection Amendment Act of 2009 eliminates loopholes in the [...]

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TweetOn October 22, 2009, a D.C. Superior Court awarded Colin Browne over $282,000 for his former employer’s violations of the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA).  This is one of the highest awards under the D.C. WPA to date.  The award comes after a 5 day jury trial.  We first blogged about the verdict in Mr. Browne’s [...]

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TweetOn October 6, 2009, a jury in the District of Columbia decided in favor of D.C. Whistleblower Colin Browne in the case of Browne v. University of District of Columbia.  In the suit, Colin Browne alleged that his former employer, the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) violated the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) [...]

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TweetAffirming a jury’s finding that Mohammed Kakeh, a Controller for the United Planning Organization (“UPO”) was terminated for his refusal to engage in fraudulent billing and for providing information to the Office of Inspector General, Judge Kessler rejected several arguments by UPO that would undermine the statutory whistleblower protections under which Kakeh brought his claim, [...]

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