Employees who “blow the whistle” on their Employer’s misconduct are protected under various federal and state laws. These laws not only prohibit retaliation against employees who report workplace wrongdoing, but may also allow for a significant recovery by the employee – whistleblower where the fraud engaged in by the Employer is perpetuated against state or federal institutions or involves public dollars. The opportunity for ordinary citizens who initiate such lawsuits to recover significant monetary awards has resulted in a substantial amount of employer fraud to be discovered and remediated.
The federal False Claims Act protects employees who blow the whistle on employers who engage in fraudulent activity that has an adverse economic consequence to the federal government. Employees’ actions in reporting this activity are protected from retaliation. Furthermore, an employee may recover a percentage of those dollars recovered by the federal government as a result of the fraud. This may be a significant economic recovery for the employee.
Federal environmental and safety laws protect employees who report violations of these statutes from retaliation. The statute of limitations that is the period of time in which an employee may make a claim, is relatively short under many of these statutes so prompt action is required by any employee wishing protection under the statutes.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”), was enacted by Congress in the wake of the colossal accounting frauds at Enron and WorldCom. SOX has transformed the legal landscape for employees who work at publicly traded companies. SOX’s whistleblower-protection provisions provide a powerful legal mechanism for employees who suffer retaliation for their reporting of accounting fraud, misleading statements to the investing public, and other financial or securities-related misdeeds.
The successful representation of Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblowers necessitates the ability to analyze and assert claims within a 180-day deadline for the filing of claims with the Department of Labor (DOL), which is the federal agency that first hears all SOX whistleblower cases. And, both the DOL and the federal courts, which can accept jurisdiction after employees have first exhausted the DOL procedures, have very stringent requirements for bringing and proving of SOX whistleblower claims.
The Florida Whistleblower Act protects employees who openly oppose unlawful activity by their employers. Florida law protects both private sector Fla. Stat. § 448.102 and public sector Fla. Stat. §112.3187 employees from such retaliation, however there are important differences in the law regarding public versus private sector employees, and is important to get legal advice earlier rather than later in order to ascertain your rights under the law, as well as actions you may take in order to ensure your rights under these statutes.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found in favor of an AirTran Airways pilot fired in 2007 in what OSHA deemed “an act of retaliation” after he raised safety concerns about flight operations. AirTran fired the pilot after he filed ten (10) reports in one day about the imbalanced wheel on an aircraft. OSHA …
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