Whistleblower Protection Act

Billions of federal dollars are lost because of fraud or misconduct. The government was once in need of citizens to alert them to potential fraud by agencies, but workers were afraid of retaliation against them if they reported fraudulent activities by their employers. In 1989, the Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted to protect those workers so they will feel confident about reporting the misconduct and not losing their jobs.

Ending Employer Retaliation

The Whistleblower Protection Act created a special position within the government called the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and charged it with investigating retaliation complaints made by employees who had reported their agencies for abuse of authority, danger to public safety or health, fraud, violations of law, or waste of government resources or money

Previous Protection Acts

The Whistleblower Protection Act was preceded by the Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912, which protected government employees from losing their jobs after providing information to the U.S. Congress about their employer’s actions against the government. Following Lloyd-La Follette was the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, referred to as the Clean Water Act, which provided environmental agency employees protections for whistleblower activities.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 spread whistleblower protection to public companies who commit fraud and gross misconduct that affects the United States government. Many states also have their own form of whistleblower protection which expands the protections that the federal Act allows. Following Sarbanes-Oxley, the Senate Judiciary Committee realized that whistleblower protections are vast and varied between states and in order to maintain protection, numerous state statutes need to be claimed to provide adequate protection.

Military Protection

Other whistleblower protection-type acts include the Military Whistleblower Protection Act for members of the Armed Service, and the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1998 for citizens in the United Kingdom who report unlawful acts to the government.

Protection Against False Claim

Even those who falsely claim misconduct by their employer have protections so they do not lose their job. The statute of limitations to file a lawsuit based on adverse actions related to their whistleblower activity is six years, depending on state law.

Confidential Matters

Protection can only be provided under the Whistleblower Protection Act when the party reporting the fraud or misconduct is the first to report such conduct through a federally-filed lawsuit and keeps the information confidential until such time as the United States Department of Justice determines it will prosecute the claim itself.

Even with the protections provided by The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and other laws and statutes, those who report claims are sometimes overwhelmed by the stress of the matter, especially if the case is drawn out over time. So, it is not uncommon for the attorneys in whistleblower protection matters to handle every aspect of the case.