Search
The Employer Handbook BlogA lawyer is the plaintiff in a new COVID-19 wrongful discharge lawsuit
I’m glad that you folks enjoyed yesterday’s recipe post. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Whistleblowing
You think COVID-19 discrimination claims are bad? “Hold my drink,” says the whistleblower.
Image by Alexey Hulsov from Pixabay
In the past several days, many states have issued stay-at-home orders. Here is a list of them from CNN.
These orders vary, and no one is literally locked in their homes. But, the gist is that affected citizens should stay at home unless they need to venture out to get food, obtain medicine, or work for employers that provide essential services. New Jersey is one of these states — shocking, I know — that has issued a stay-at-home order.
So, what would happen if your local business forced an NJ resident to come to work against the individual’s wishes?
Five employment cases blowing up my DropBox and Pocket
You know, being a client of the Blogger King has its perks. (That’s me. I’m the Blogger King). When I’m not litigating and counseling on employment-related issues, I’m taking blog post requests and emailing weekly updates of HR goodies that don’t make it onto the blog.
But, with my DropBox and Pocket chock full of recent cases, I’ll summarize the recent biggies.
NJ Supreme Court: Whistleblower law protects watchdog employees too
Can a person whose job is to ensure that the company follows a particular standard of care; i.e., a watchdog employee, bring an action against the company under New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), the state’s whistleblower law?
In case you missed it, earlier this month, the New Jersey Supreme Court answered this question (here) with a resounding yes! The logic is that CEPA is a very broad, remedial statute, and there is nothing in the letter of the law that carves away protections for watchdog employees. Therefore, when an employee “blows the whistle” on an unlawful (or what he/she reasonably believes is an unlawful) employer activity, that employee may have a claim under CEPA — even if the whistleblower is employed as, well, a whistleblower.
Image Credit: By Metal_whistle.jpg: Markus Schweissderivative work: MichaelFrey (Metal_whistle.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Pennsylvania nears a game-changing whistleblower-law amendment
Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby.
Let me know.
Girl I’m gonna show you how to do it.
And we start real slow.
You just put your lips together.
And you come real close.
Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby?
Here we go.
Concerned with the limited scope of Pennsylvania’s Whistleblower Law, the existential activist Flo Rida wrote the 2012 hit Whistle to raise awareness and trigger a potentially huge change in the law.
{Editor’s Note: No he didn’t. Not at all.}
No flush, but two of a kind win in a workplace toilet dispute
Hey employers! You know what’s stupid? My tongue-in-cheek pun on despicable workplace conditions. Depriving employees of bathroom privileges. Even dumber is firing them after they complain to state regulators about the lack of an onsite toilet.
One company recently learned this lesson the hard way. Details after the jump…
* * *
Is it whistleblowing when your job is to report violations of the law?
That is the question that a former Starbucks employee is asking the NJ Supreme Court to answer. More on this case and what it could mean for actions asserted under NJ’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) after the jump…
* * *
The curious case of a high-speed ambulance-chasing whistleblower
But before I get to that, did you know that The Employer Handbook turns one today? It’s true. Help me blow out the candle — hey, kid! Save some for the rest of us.
Whatevs.
Just click through because I’ve got a crazazy one for you. It’s a true story about a police officer – slash – ambulance driver who started a high-speed ambulance chase to serve a restraining order on a co-worker’s ex-boyfriend and then…
Yeah, just hit the jump…
* * *
OSHA wants employees to blow more whistles
In a press release issued yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that it is implementing additional measures to strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Program.
A brief rundown of these new measures follows after the jump…
* * *
Yikes! NJ discrimination victims may tack on a whistleblower claim
Consider this scenario:
Employee believes he is being discriminated against. Employee complains to Human Resources. HR investigates, but is unable to substantiate the employee’s claims. Employee nonetheless sues his employer, alleging discrimination. While the lawsuit is pending, the employer fires the employee for reasons it claims are unrelated to the pending action.
According to a recent unpublished NJ decision, the employee could have both a discrimination claim and a whistleblower claim under New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA).
Ain’t that some sh!t!
More on this important decision and the impact it may have on employers, after the jump…
* * *