The Court Of Public Opinion

Whistleblower laws and other laws that that have provisions for employer retaliation protection are enforced by numerous government agencies. An apt example of this would be the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and its divisions, which enforce several major laws that directly, protect whistle blowers or have provisions to shelter employees against retaliation. Protection is also provided for reporting desecration of the laws, refusing to engage in any action made illegitimate by the laws, or participating in any proceedings under the laws.

The Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act, which is a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, has been imposed by the Department of Labor. It safeguards employees of publicly traded corporations from retribution for reporting assumed violations of any rule or regulation of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Protection is also provided for contravention of any provision of Federal law relating to deceit against shareholders. Not only does this landmark Act criminalize employer retaliation, it also requires publicly traded corporations to create procedures for internal whistle blowing. Apart from this, it also requires attorneys to become internal whistle blowers.

The laws based on Whistleblower Protection Act safeguards the interest of whistle blowers who work for the Federal government, and is imposed by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Apart from this, there are dozens of federal laws protecting whistleblowers or otherwise designed to protect workers from retribution or other unlawful treatment. There are also many related state and local laws. Often many lawyers are not familiar with the employment laws relating to whistle blowing and few are familiar of the laws outside the states in which they practice. Before making decisions based upon state laws, people are advised to do some research on their own and consult an experienced labor attorney, accustomed to representing plaintiffs. This should be done to educate themselves about the various federal and state laws, which might apply to protect them in their particular circumstances. Before blowing the whistle, it is advised to have adequate information regarding the protection provided by a whistle blower law or a like provision in another law.

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Whistleblower is a term applied to a person who reveals misconduct within an organization, to the public or to those in positions of authority. The whistleblower is a person, usually an employee, in a government agency or private enterprise who makes a disclosure to the public or to those in power, of mismanagement, dishonesty, illegality, or some other wrongdoing.

Since the 1960s, the public value of whistleblower has been increasingly recognized. Federal and state statutes and regulations have been enacted to protect whistleblowers from various forms of retribution. Even without a statute, a number of decisions encourage and protect whistleblowers on grounds of public policy. The federal False Claims Act (31 U.S.C.A. 3729) also rewards a whistleblower that brings a lawsuit against a company, which makes a forged claim or commits fraud against the government.

People performing the role of whistleblowers are often the subject matter of retaliation by their employers. Normally the employer discharges the whistleblower, who is often an at-will employee. At-will employees are people without a specific term of employment. The employee may quit at any time and the employer has the right to fire the employee without having to quote a reason. However, the judiciary and legislatures have formed exceptions for whistleblowers that are at-will employees. Employees who blow the whistle on issues that affect only private interests will generally be unsuccessful in maintaining a cause of action for expulsion in violation of public policy. As a general rule, employees asserting that they were dismissed for disclosing internal corporate misconducts have been unsuccessful in determining public policy exceptions to the at-will rule. It is also seen that grievances about internal company policy do not involve public policy supporting unjust dismissal suits.

Many states have enforced whistleblower statutes to protect and safeguard the interests of the whistleblower, but these statutes vary widely in coverage. Some statutes tend to apply only to public employees, some apply to both public and private employees, and others apply to public employees and employees of public contractors.

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