Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetOn July 12, 2012 the Department of Justice filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Wells Fargo Bank, subject to court approval, the second largest fair lending settlement in the department’s history. The Department of Justice alleges that between 2004 and 2009, Wells Fargo engaged in fair lending discrimination against [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Department of Labor used its authority under OSHA Section 11(c) of the Discrimination against Employees under OSHA Act of 1970 to order Union Pacific Railroad to pay a total of $400,000 in punitive damages, $90,315 in compensatory damages, $34,900 in attorney fees, and more than $90,000 in back wages to three whistleblowers.  Union [...]

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TweetWebinar: Using New Developments In Whistleblower Laws To Your Client’s Advantage March 10, 2011 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00p.m. ET/1:00p.m. CT/ 12:00 MT Congress recently enacted several new robust whistleblower reward and protection laws, and strengthened existing whistleblower laws. This webinar will address new developments in whistleblower law, including recent decisions strengthening the rights of federal employee [...]

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TweetThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued new rules that now permit whistleblowers to be rewarded for reporting a company’s illegal tax scheme that leads to ill-gotten tax refunds or credits.  Under the IRS’s whistleblower program, whistleblowers can be rewarded up to 30% of the funds recouped in return for reporting tax fraud.  For more [...]

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TweetToday President Obama has signed 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 outbreaks [...]

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TweetLaw360 published an article on the whistleblower protections in the new food safety bill, which was written by R. Scott Oswald and Jason Zuckerman, principal attorneys at The Employment Law Group® law firm.

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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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TweetThe Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) vacated an Administrative Law Judge’s summary decision in Williams v. Dallas Independent School District where the Complainant, unbeknownst to the ALJ, responded to requests for admission but did not file that response with the ALJ.  Having assumed that the Complainant did not respond to the requests to [...]

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TweetA California Court of Appeals upheld sanctions against Caremark Rx, LLC for failing to preserve electronic databases of their prescription drugs in a readily-accessible format even though Caremark knew for over two years that lawsuits based on that data were imminent.  The trial court found that: The electronic data evidence was vital to the litigation; [...]

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TweetAARP announced in a press release that its attorneys will join the legal team representing whistleblower Kevin Colquitt who reported on the off-label marketing of metal biliary stents wrongfully placed in older patients to treat vascular disease.  According to AARP, “the risky devices are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as safe [...]

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TweetAccording to the Washington Post, the Office of Special Counsel is investigating the claim of Maria Aran, a whistleblower at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.   Aran complained that one of the Florida offices mishandled hundreds of naturalization and citizenship certificates.  Instead of emailing her complaint to the Office of Security and Integrity, she mistakenly [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) issued a press release and a letter addressed to President Barack Obama substantiating Mr. Russ Daul’s allegations that the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) misappropriated funds.  According to the OSC, DTIC violated the Economy Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1535 by improperly collected fees in [...]

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TweetNew York recently amended its False Claims Act (FCA) by expanding the Act’s coverage and strengthening the Act’s whistleblower protections.  The New York FCA now applies to violations of New York tax law when the violator’s income from sales exceeds one million for the year in which the violation took place.  Furthermore, whistleblower protections are [...]

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TweetIn Kahn v. Dep’t of Justice, the Federal Circuit, relying on the Drake decision, held that a WPA plaintiff need not demonstrate that he blew the whistle on an actual violation of law: We reiterate, however, that “[t]he test is not whether [the petitioner] was able to prove [a violation], but rather could a disinterested [...]

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TweetIn Williams v. Basic Contracting Servs., Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia affirmed the broad scope of protected conduct under False Claims Act (FCA) by holding that a whistleblower who investigates alleged fraud committed by her employer is protected from retaliation under the FCA even if the whistleblower does [...]

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TweetOn September 1, 2010, Administrative Law Judge Robert Rae issued an order holding that a joint employer’s “‘ability to exercise control’ by hiring, transferring, promoting, reprimanding or discharging [a whistleblower], or the ‘ability to influence’ another employer to take such actions is sufficient to establish joint employer liability under the [Surface Transportation Assistance Act].”  The [...]

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TweetOn September 7, 2010, the Ethics Resource Center (ERC) published a study about internal disclosures of misconduct titled “Who’s Telling You What You Need to Know, Who Isn’t, and What You Can Do About It.”  According to the study: 1. Women tend to report more than men; 2. Members of unions are less likely to report than [...]

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TweetAccording to the Boston Globe, the White House announced that it will delay the release of a database containing records of contractor fraud and substandard performance, stating “legal and practical issues” must first be addressed.  The database, named the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, was established in 2008 and includes information companies must [...]

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TweetThe Attorney General of New York has settled its lawsuit against Sodexo, a provider of school lunches, for $20 million.  Two whistleblowers, John and Jay Carciero, filed the qui tam action alleging Sodexo received illegal kickbacks from the vendors it selected for school lunch programs.  Under New York law, whistleblowers are entitled to a reward [...]

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TweetAccording to the Wall Street Journal, Senate leaders – motivated by a recent salmonella outbreak and massive egg recall – will likely bring their version of the Food Safety Modernization Act to a vote in the full Senate on September 13.  Click here for a copy of Senate Bill S. 510.  The House has already passed [...]

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TweetAs reported by the Blog of Legal Times, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has awarded $1 million to Glen Kaiser and Karen Kaiser who blew the whistle on insider trading committed by Pequot Capital Management, Inc.  The Kaisers provided the SEC with emails between a Microsoft employee and a Pequot employee, David Zilkh.  Pequot [...]

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TweetOn July 12, 2010, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) held in the case of Gonzalez v. DHS that the mere existence of a federal agency’s open investigation into allegations regarding a federal employee’s conduct cannot be the sole cause for that employee’s indefinite suspension.  The employee, Manuel Gonzalez, was suspended without pay indefinitely by [...]

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TweetThe SEC has agreed to pay $755,000 to settle a wrongful discharge claim brought by former employee Gary J. Aguirre.  Aguirre, an attorney at the SEC, headed an investigation of Pequot Capital Management for insider trading.  After urging management at the SEC to issue a subpoena for Wall Street banker John Mack, Aguirre was discharged.  [...]

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TweetOn April 2, 2010, a False Claims Act qui tam action against Oracle Corp. and Oracle USA, Inc. was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.  Oracle entered into Multiple Award Schedule agreements with the GSA.  Under these agreements, the federal government is supposed to receive discounts “equal to or [...]

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TweetOn June 1, 2010, OHSA ordered U.S. Bank in Seattle to reinstate a former manager fired in retaliation for filing an internal complaint alleging securities and bank fraud by company employees.  The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) protects employees who engage in protected activity by providing information that the employee reasonably believes constitutes a violation of federal [...]

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