Federal and Minnesota Law on Whistleblower Protection in Employment.
Your employer can’t fire you for reporting illegal activity – that’s the bottom line. In fact, under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, your employer can’t take any adverse action against you – including demotion, reducing your hours, reducing your pay, or discipline – because you made a good faith report of a violation or suspected violation of any state or federal law, statute, rule, or regulation. If your employer does any of these acts towards you, you may need to seek legal help from a Minneapolis employment lawyer.
An employee’s report or complaint has to be in good faith. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the employee is correct about the violation – it just means that you have to actually believe that the law is being violated. Or – alternatively – employees are protected if they refuse an order by their employer to perform an act that they believe violates any state or federal law, statute, rule, or regulation.
Once an employee has made a good faith report of a violation – or refused to obey an order that he or she believes violates the law – then the employer may not take any adverse action against the employee, including termination, discipline, or reduction in hours or pay.
If your employer retaliated against you for reporting a violation of the law, then you likely have a whistleblower case against the company.
If you’ve got the courage to stand up against breaking the law, then your employer can’t punish you for it.
What Laws Protect Whistleblowers at Work?
There are a number of state and federal laws that protect you for doing the right thing and reporting unlawful activity or refusing to engage in it.
First, the Minnesota Whistleblower Act protects Minnesota employees who make a good faith report of a violation or suspected violation of any state or federal statute, law, rule, or regulation.
Second, the False Claims Act is a federal law that protects employees who report fraud by their employers against the U.S. government. The Minnesota False Claims Act does the same thing for Minnesota employees who report fraud by their employers against the State of Minnesota. Both False Claims Acts provide rewards for whistleblowers that provide information about fraud being committed against the government – the financial reward is usually a percentage of the amount of the fraud. Fraud against the government occurs in lot of different ways, from the healthcare industry (Medicare and Medicaid fraud), medical billing, defense projects, and public works projects.
Third, Sarbanes-Oxley is a federal law that protects employees who blow the whistle on corporate fraud.
Fourth, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) is a federal law that protects employees from termination who report OSHA violations.
For a legal consultation with a whistleblower claims lawyer serving Minneapolis, call 612-349-2729
How Do I Prove a Whistleblower Claim?
Your employer will probably not admit that it terminated you or disciplined you because you reported unlawful activity. Most employers are too sophisticated for that, and unlawful whistleblower retaliation is often implicit, subtle, and nuanced.
The first thing we’ll do to prove your whistleblower claim is establish that you “engaged in protected activity.” That basically means that you, in good faith, made a report or complaint to a supervisor or manager about a suspected violation of the law (that includes state and federal law, statutes, regulations, and rules). We can rely on your testimony alone to prove this up. Of course, if you’ve got an email or other document that you sent to your employer making the report – that’s even better.
Next, we’ll look to the “temporal proximity” of your report compared to the employer’s action against you. That basically means we’ll see how much time passed between your report of unlawful activity and when your employer terminated you, wrote you up, reduced your hours, or otherwise retaliated against you. Many employers are so careless that they’ll take action against whistleblowing employees within days or weeks. If your employer took action against you very shortly after you made your report of unlawful activity, that’s great evidence of whistleblower retaliation – especially if you’ve worked there for a good amount of time.
Sometimes, when employers retaliate against whistleblowers, they’ll make up and offer a different, lawful reason for termination. For example, your employer might claim that it terminated you for poor performance. In order to win on a whistleblower claim, employment lawyers have to prove that the reason offered by the employer is a pretextual reason that is just being said so that your employer can avoid having to say the actual, illegal reason for termination – retaliation or reprisal against a whistleblower.
We’ve got a couple ways to prove pretext on behalf of employees. First, we try to demonstrate that the reason given by the employer is just factually wrong. So, for example, if your employer claims that it terminated you for poor performance, but actually gave you high performance reviews for a number of years and has no written records of ever giving you discipline or counseling, then we’ve created a fact question for a jury regarding whether the reason given by the employer is the real reason for termination, or just pretext to mask whistleblower retaliation.
Second, we can prove that the reason given by the employer isn’t the real reason for termination because it wasn’t equally applied to similarly situated employees. So, if your employer claims that it terminated you for poor performance, but your peers actually had equal or worse performance reviews than you – or documented performance problems that you didn’t have – than we’ve created a fact issue regarding whether the employer’s stated reason for termination is the actual reason, or just pretext to mask whistleblower retaliation.
Minneapolis Whistleblower Claims Lawyer Near Me 612-349-2729
Can My Employer Fire Me if I Make a Whistleblower Claim?
No – that’s the whole point. If you make a claim or report of unlawful activity, then your employer cannot retaliate against you in any way.
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How Much is My Whistleblower Case Worth?
This is absolutely a good question to ask as you make a decision on whether to pursue a case in court or not. Starting an employment case is a big decision and you should know what your potential return is for the investment of your time and energy.
The short answer is that the value of your case depends on a lot of things, like:
- the strength of your case on the merits;
- the amount of damages you’ve suffered;
- whether your employer has the ability to pay a large amount; and
- your tolerance for risk.
We get this question so much that we’ve created a separate, detailed page going through each of these factors, right here.
Minnesota Whistleblower Lawyers Get Results
We represented Aaron Benner, a teacher at St. Paul Public Schools. He blew the whistle on disparate treatment of students, by race, by the School District. Specifically, he went to a School Board meeting and told them that the District’s racial equity policies amounted to treating black students more leniently than white students when it came to discipline and behavior standards. He said that made it impossible for him to do his job.
Weeks before trial, the District settled for $525,000. More information here.
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What Kind of Damages Can I get in a Whistleblower Case?
For claims under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, you may be entitled to back pay and front pay damages, and emotional distress and other compensatory damages, in addition to your attorney fees and costs.
What Should I do if My Employer Terminated Me for Making a Report of Unlawful Activity?
First of all, if you’re searching for answers right now, we’re very sorry that you’re in this position. We know how tough it is to lose your job, especially when you’ve got family and other financial obligations. It’s especially frustrating and hurtful when the termination is just because you stuck up and did the right thing.
Second, make sure that take advantage of state benefits designed to help people going through tough times. Apply for unemployment benefits. And, contact COBRA to make sure you and your family are covered for health insurance.
Third, write everything down that happened to you. Write down the date that you were terminated, who terminated you, what they precisely said was the reason for your termination, and who else was present. Write down whether you think the reason your employer gave you was accurate or not, and why. Write down the names of employees that you think may have useful information. Write down the types of documents or emails that you think may have good information about your case. Write down everything – the reason for this is that your memory will probably fade over time and you want to document things while they’re fresh in your mind. If you pursue a lawsuit, your trial likely won’t be for at least 12 to 18 months, so you want to have something that you can refer to – write everything down.
Fourth, immediately send a letter or email request to your employer requesting your personnel file and the reason for your termination. Under Minnesota law, your employer needs to provide it to you. If your employer hasn’t paid you all of your wages or given you your last paycheck, make sure to request those wages in writing also (by letter or email).
Fifth, call us to talk about your case.
Contact Our Minnesota Whistleblower Attorneys.
You must act quickly when it comes to employment claims. If you wait, there may be strict statutes of limitation that will bar you from filing any claim at all against your employer. Call Madia today to discuss your case.
First, contact our office and tell us about your situation. You’ll talk with our staff for about 5-10 minutes. They’ll get some basic information about you and your case.
There’s some information that we’ll need when you call. We will want to know who you worked for, what kind of work you did, for how long you worked there, how much you earned, if/when you were terminated, the reason given by your employer for any discipline and termination, and why you think your employer did something unlawful or wrongful. If you have this information handy, it will allow us to proceed more quickly.
We will get back to you shortly – usually within a few hours. If your potential case is a little outside of our wheelhouse, we may refer you to attorneys, agencies, or organizations that we think might be better suited to handle your situation. Our goal is to ensure you get the best and most appropriate help possible for your particular situation. If that’s not us, we’ll try to tell you immediately and point you in the right direction.
If we think that we might be able help you, we’ll set an appointment for you to talk with one of our employment lawyers. We’ll discuss your case, and give you our honest assessment of its strengths, weaknesses, and value. If we then mutually agree that Madia will represent you, we will talk about the process of moving forward with your case.
When you talk with our employment lawyers, please be sure to have all relevant documents that you have in your possession. For example, that could include: pay-stubs, personnel files, employment handbooks/policies, letters from your employer (including your termination letter), any text messages or emails that you think are important, and any other documents that you think might be helpful.
Call 612-349-2729 or complete a Case Evaluation form
