Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetThe City of Sacramento, California has announced that within the next two months it will adopt a toll-free anonymous whistleblower hotline. The hotline will cost about $200,000 to fund and will be staffed by a live person twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. This hotline is in response [...]

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TweetOn November 13, 2012, the Senate voted in favor of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 743/H.R. 3289, a piece of legislation that would provide federal whistleblowers with stronger protection from retaliation. Overall, this bill will close many gaps in the existing law, providing additional protection to those who expose fraud, waste, abuse, and [...]

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TweetThe Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has announced that it successfully completed its fourth mediation in the month of October. OSC mediated between Border Patrol agent Christian Sanchez and the U.S. Border Patrol’s Port Angeles Station in the state of Washington after Sanchez filed a Whistleblower Protection Act complaint. Sanchez alleges that the U.S. Border [...]

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TweetR. Scott Oswald, managing principal of The Employment Law Group® law firm, was recently interviewed by Law360 regarding the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), which the U.S. Senate unanimously passed last week. If also passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the WPEA would expand whistleblower protections against retaliation by making it easier for whistleblowers [...]

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TweetBaltimore, Maryland U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis has awarded Salvador Lopes, the ship’s third engineer, $462,500 for blowing the whistle on Greek ship manager Efploia Shipping Co. and Denmark-based Aquarosa Shipping. In January, both shipping companies pled guilty to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) by intentionally releasing oil and plastic waste [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Department of Labor last week ordered Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic to reinstate James Seehusen, a former courier. The clinic terminated Seehusen after he complained that it failed to repair a broken windshield on a vehicle, perform proper daily inspections on vehicles, and require drivers to obtain proper certification in order to operate the clinic’s [...]

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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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TweetKV Pharmaceutical (KV), the parent company for Ethex Corporation (Ethex), this month agreed to pay $17 million to settle claims that Ethex of violated the False Claims Act when it allegedly reported false information to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to the complaint filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), Ethex [...]

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TweetThe U.S Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is suing RockTenn Corporation, a consumer packaging manufacturer based in Norcross, Georgia for allegedly violating whistleblower protection laws at its Fernandina Beach plant.  The lawsuit alleges that an employee at the plant had repeatedly raised serious and credible safety concerns with managers, and that [...]

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TweetOne of the nation’s largest privately held mortgage companies, Allied Home Mortgage Corporation (Allied), and two of its top executives, CEO Jim Hodge and Executive VP Jeanne Stell, are facing scrutiny for providing false loan certifications to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Peter Belli, a former regional manager at Allied, filed suit [...]

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TweetIn wake of the child sexual assault allegations against former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky that have shocked the nation, lawmakers across the U.S. are moving quickly to tighten up rules on who must report the sexual abuse of a child.  State legislatures are likely going to debate whether new laws are needed to [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® principal attorneys David Scher and R. Scott Oswald wrote an article entitled “Blowing the Whistle,”  which appeared in the October 2011 edition of California Lawyer.  In the article, Scher and Oswald discuss the California Whistleblower Protection Act (CWPA), referring to it as a “robust law that…has limitations and administrative hurdles.” They [...]

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TweetLaw360 quoted Nicholas Woodfield, a principal attorney at The Employment Law Group® law firm, regarding the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s request for an additional $6.1 million to fund 45 more investigators for its whistleblower programs.   Mr. Woodfield stated: More efficient investigations are among OSHA’s goals, but unless the workload for investigators gets lighter, [...]

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TweetIn Hasan v. Enercon Services, Inc., the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) overturned a summary decision order in favor of whistleblower Syed Hasan who alleges that Enercon Services, Inc. refused to hire him because he is a whistleblower. Hasan is a structural engineer who was previously discriminated against by his former employer, American [...]

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TweetOn June 30, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in United States ex rel. Wilkins v. United Health Group  overturned the decision of the lower court and held in favor of whistleblowers Charles Wilkins and Daryl Willis.  The whistleblowers allege that United Health Group (UHG) provided kickbacks to those [...]

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TweetLaw360 quoted The Employment Law Group® Principal Jason Zuckerman in an article regarding the U.S. Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board’s en banc decision in Sylvester v. Parexel International on May 25, which clarified the broad scope of protected conduct for Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) whistleblowers.  Jason Zuckerman, a principal at The Employment Law Group, which [...]

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TweetThe DOL Administrative Review Board has issued a very significant en banc decision on the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) that significantly strengthens the statute by clarifying the broad scope of protected conduct.  The ARB’s opinion in Sylvester v. Parexel International LLC, ARB No. 07-123, ALJ Nos. 2007-SOX-039, 042 (May 25, 2011) represents a substantial [...]

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TweetThe Securities and Exchange Commission is receiving praise from whistleblower advocates for issuing finalized rules that do not require whistleblowers to report fraudulent or illegal activity internally to their employer, but instead allow whistleblowers to blow the whistle direct to the SEC. The Dodd-Frank Act established a new whistleblower program at the SEC, requiring the [...]

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TweetThe IRS Whistleblower Office paid a $4.5 million reward under its new Whistleblower Reward Program to an unidentified accountant who discovered a tax liability greater than $20 million at a Fortune 500 financial services firm.  The firm had declined to report the tax liability to the IRS after it was discovered. The whistleblower came forward [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Merit System Protections Board (MSPB) ordered whistleblower Teresa Chambers reinstated to her former position as Chief of the U.S. Park Police (USPP) and compensated her for over six years of lost wages.  While under pressure from Debbie Weatherly, a staff member of the House of Representatives Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, the U.S. Department of [...]

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TweetIn Bonds v. Leavitt, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment, holding that Dr. Duane Bonds’s disclosure to a supervisor that the National Institute of Health (NIH) unlawfully retained cell lines created from the blood of participants in a clinical trial without their consent [...]

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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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TweetTom Harrington, an associate at The Employment Law Group® law firm, was quoted in a December 3, 2009 article published by The Raleigh News & Observer.  The article, “Tony Rand accused of insider trading,” discusses accusations of insider trading by Paul Feldman, the former President of Law Enforcement Associates.  Mr. Feldman claims he was unlawfully [...]

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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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TweetIn an article titled, “Whistle-blower suit filed against Pittsburg school district,” Contra Costa Times reports about Tim Galli’s whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the Pittsburg school district.  Tim Galli, a 35-year educator and former Pittsburg High principal, suffered retaliation when he raised concerns about the school district’s questionable budgetary practices, and undisclosed financial conflict of interest [...]

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