U.S. justices extend employee whistleblower protections

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

BY LAWRENCE HURLEY
WASHINGTON Tue Mar 4, 2014 1:20pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that whistleblower protections apply broadly, saying that employees of subcontractors, including investment advisers, law firms and accounting firms, should also be protected from employer retaliation.

The justices voted 6-3 along non-ideological lines in a ruling that extends whistleblower protections beyond employees of publicly traded companies.

The three dissenting justices said the ruling had a "stunning reach" that could give protection to household employees like babysitters.

The justices were interpreting part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 Wall Street reform law passed by Congress that sets standards for all U.S. publicly traded company boards, management and public accounting firms.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/04/us-usa-court-whistleblowers-idUSBREA231D320140304

[lobodons]

1. Polar Vortex reaches down to Hell

SCOTUS rules in favor of the People vs. Corporations? Hell has frozen over!!

[Demeter]

5. I would say Justice Dept. over Corporations

and I doubt it will stand very long, either. The Corporations will not be pleased.

[happyslug]

2. Here is the actual opinion

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-3_4f57.pdf

This case was actually 4-2-3. Scalia and Thomas agreed to the result and most of the opinion, but Scalia made his traditional attack on "Congressional Intent" as oppose to what Congress actually passed AND he appear willing to expand who is covered by the Act to cover MORE employees then did Ginsburg (who decided this case should be the limit to what is covered by that Act).

Scalia's objection to Ginsberg's opinion:

Although that limiting principle,” may be appealing from a policy standpoint,it has no basis whatsoever in the statute’s text. So long as an employee works for one of the actors enumerated in
§1514A(a) and reports a covered form of fraud in a manner identified in §1514(a)(1)–(2), the employee is protected from retaliation

Sotomayor in her dissent, wants to restrict who is covered by the law, to people actually employed by a publicly held company (Whose stock is traded), as opposed to an employee of a privately held company (whose stock is not traded) even if the later is actually making the decisions for the publicly held company. Ginsberg and Scalia both reject that concept on the grounds it is clear Congress wanted to protect ANY employee OR contractor who saw fraud occurring. The dissent says the Majority's decision would permit a baby sitter of an officer of the publicly held company to sue if the baby sitter reports wrong doing by the publicly held Company. The dissent wants to make the point that such private employees are NOT part of the protected class under this law.

In many ways Ginsberg in here majority opinion, is addressing this dissent, which Scalia in his concurrence basically told Ginsberg she should ignore. Ginsberg wants to show the law does not cover Baby sitters of employees, officers and contractors of the company, but anyone else it does. Scalia says, so if a baby sitter does report and it turn out to be correct, he would protect the baby sitter.

Just my comments on the opinion,.

[DeSwiss]

3. BS. n/t

[Demeter]

4. ...employees of subcontractors....should also be protected from employer retaliation.

Edward Snowden, call your lawyer...and beware! It could be a trap.