Whistleblowers Attorney in New Jersey, New Jersey
What is whistleblower retaliation?
What is whistleblower retaliation?
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whistleblower retaliation is a form of
adverse action against an employee by an
employer
uh in which the employer is taking
retaliatory action because the employee
engage in what we call legally protected
conduct
the type of conduct that’s legally
protected under whistleblower laws are
complaints by the employee about conduct
that the employee reasonably believes is
either unlawful or in violation of
public policy uh and so the key points
regarding that are that it’s just got to
be a reasonable belief the employee
doesn’t have to be right the and there’s
a whole slew of case law in New Jersey
where the courts say we don’t expect
employees to be lawyers so not only do
they not have to be right even if they
can be reasonably mistaken as as to the
facts you know for example and this is
an example I use with clients all the
time if an employee works for a chemical
company and there’s a pipe coming out of
the back of the building discharging
fluid into a river and that fluid is
brown and the employee says “I I think
that may be unhealthy it may be
pollution.” and the employee calls the
Environmental Protection Agency or calls
OSHA the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration if it turns out that the
fluid is harmless or that there’s no law
that actually prohibits the discharge of
that particular
fluid the employee is still protected
from retaliatory conduct the employer
cannot fire the employee demote the
employee suspend the employee cut the
employees pay because the employee made
that complaint because we want to
encourage people to bring those issues
forward the only way that the government
finds out about those issues in a
workplace is if there are employees who
are brave enough to come forward so the
employee can be reasonably mistaken as
to the facts the employee can be
reasonably mistaken as to the law as
well that um they think that this
particular conduct is unlawful and in
fact it’s not you know that the fluid uh
being discharged is not something that’s
specifically prohibited these laws
protect employees who
have the the courage to come forward and
call their employer on the carpet
regarding things that may violate the
law or public policy
Morristown, NJ employment law attorney Chris Lenzo talks about whistleblower retaliation.
