It can be terrifying to become aware of fraud, especially when you are a federal civil servant who chose to work to help your fellow citizens. Choosing to expose that fraud and become a civil service whistleblower means risking your livelihood, friendship with colleagues, and financial security. Once you become a whistleblower and an investigation into the fraud commences, there is a serious chance that you will feel the wrath of those you have exposed. Loss of employment, punitive or disciplinary action, and defamation are just some of the forms of retaliation that whistleblowers sometimes experience.
Mississippi clients who are thinking of becoming civil service whistleblowers often ask about the retaliation. Luckily, the U.S. Merit System Personnel Board Whistleblower Program (MSPB) offers protections to those who expose waste, fraud, and abuse. The following is from the MSPB whistleblower web site:
How does the MSPB protect whistleblowers?
Unlike many of the Merit System Principles, for which there is no specific law or regulation that allows an affected employee to appeal a violation, MSPB can order an agency to take corrective action for whistleblower retaliation. This would require an agency to place the whistleblower, as nearly as possible, in the position the individual would have been in had the prohibited personnel practice not occurred. The MSPB can even award the whistleblower back pay and certain reasonable and foreseeable consequential damages such as medical costs and travel expenses. In some cases, it may also award attorney fees. More recently, with the enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012, the board was also authorized to award compensatory damages.
Accordingly, there are protections in place for civil servants who report fraud, waste, and abuse; however, those protections are only as good as those charged with enforcing them.
Ant-Retaliation Protection Takes Effect Upon Submission of a Claim
The anti-retaliatory protections of the MSPB whistleblower program should take effect as soon as you file a whistleblower claim. It should not matter whether the MSPB ever investigates or acts on the complaint. However, once again, it is crucial that you submit your claim to the MSPB properly and on the correct forms. Having experienced whistleblower counsel by your side to make that filing and ensure that the anti-retaliation protection kicks in is vital to protecting your livelihood.
The following recent decision out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals details how a whistleblower went unprotected, in part because his or her claim was not filed to the MSPB’s specifications.
Cautionary Tale of Whistleblower Retaliation
A federal appeals court has found that the MSPB took too narrow a view of whistleblower protections, agreeing with the Office of Special Counsel that an employee does not need to provide “precise” details of a claim in order to pursue a complaint of retaliation.
The case involved an employee who contended that he was fired in reprisal for his disclosures to his agency and its IG office regarding nepotism. However, the MSPB held that he had not informed the OSC of the details of those disclosures and thus had not exhausted his “administrative remedies” there, as required before filing a complaint directly with the MSPB. When he appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the OSC intervened on his side, arguing that the merit board had created a procedural hurdle for whistleblowers not in the law.
The court agreed, finding that the employee had provided the OSC with sufficiently detailed and clear notice” of the whistleblower retaliation claim to investigate. The court sent the case back to the MSPB to decide.
What Should You Do if You are Considering a Whistleblower Claim?
Are you considering filing a whistleblower case? To attain your compensation, you will require the help of an experienced whistleblower attorney to decide whether the conduct you have observed constitutes fraud. Evidence gathering, dealing with the federal government’s attorneys, important deadlines, and filing requirements make your representation both complex and time-sensitive.
Call Barrett Law now at (800) 707-9577 if you think you may be a whistleblower.
Having expert legal advice by your side can mean the difference between receiving your share of a whistleblower judgment and losing your career and livelihood. Call us today.
