Managing Whistlelbowers
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending August 23, 2025
Daily Compliance News: August 21, 2025, The Fabricated Evidence Edition
Adventure in Compliance: The Novels - The Valley of Fear, Whistleblowers and Corporate Compliance
Creativity and Compliance: Reinventing Compliance with Creativity: The Acteon I-Care Code
Moving Beyond the Usual Helpline Data
Podcast - Bring Out the Bad Stuff
Adventures in Compliance: The Novels - The Valley of Fear, Introduction and Compliance Lessons Learned
Episode 381 -- NAVEX's 2025 Annual Hotline Report
Compliance Tip of the Day: AI, Whistleblowing and a Culture of Speak Up
2 Gurus Talk Compliance: Episode 56 – The Grasshopper Edition
From the Editor’s Desk: Compliance Week’s Insights and Reflections from July to August 2025
Episode 379 -- Update on False Claims Act and Customs Evasion Liability
Everything Compliance: Episode 157, The Q2 2025 Great Women in Compliance Edition
10 For 10: Top Compliance Stories For the Week Ending July 19, 2025
2 Gurus Talk Compliance: Episode 55 – The From Worse to Worser Edition
Daily Compliance News: July 18, 2025, The Don’t Alter Docs Edition
Blowing the Whistle: What Employers Should Know About DEI & the False Claims Act
When DEI Meets the FCA: What Employers Need to Know About the DOJ’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative
FCPA Compliance Report: Stay the Course: Ellen Lafferty on Navigating Anti-Corruption Compliance in 2025
Lampkin v. County of Los Angeles, 2025 WL 1874669 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025) - D’Andre Lampkin, a deputy in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, investigated a man whom he believed was soliciting a prostitute. (In...more
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court provided helpful guidance on whistleblower retaliation cases. The Court of Appeal addressed who is a prevailing party entitled to fee and cost recovery...more
Retaliation Verdict Reversed Where Plaintiff Obtained No Relief - Can an employee prove retaliation at trial yet still recover nothing – not even attorney’s fees? According to a recent decision from the California Court of...more
As we have previously reported here and here, “nuclear” verdicts from California juries in employment discrimination and harassment cases have become increasingly common over the past few years. Although these massive...more
METRC, Inc., the predominant provider of seed-to-sale tracking software used by state regulatory bodies overseeing legal cannabis markets across the U.S., faces serious allegations detailed in a recent lawsuit filed in...more
As the new year approaches, several critical legislative changes in employment law will take effect on January 1, 2025, unless specified otherwise. California employers face a dynamic regulatory landscape in 2025, with...more
The California Court of Appeal recently issued a thoroughly reasoned decision in City of Whittier v. Everest National Insurance Company, et al. It addresses coverage for whistleblower retaliation claims and also has...more
A recent California district court addressed the question of whether, for insurance coverage purposes, a SOX whistleblower claim is a “securities claim,” and answered that question in the affirmative. Skye Bioscience v....more
Recently, the California Supreme Court ruled in The People ex rel. Lilia Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s Inc. that California’s whistleblower protection statute (Labor Code § 1102.5) protects employees who disclose unlawful conduct,...more
In an employee-friendly opinion published Monday, May 22, 2023, the California Supreme Court held that an employee may be protected by the state’s whistleblower law, even when reporting unlawful activities that the employee...more
The California Supreme Court has held that an employee who makes a whistleblower complaint to his or her employer may bring a retaliation claim under the whistleblower statute (California Labor Code § 1102.5(b)) even if the...more
Killgore v. SpecPro Prof’l Servs., LLC, 51 F.4th 973 (9th Cir. 2022) - While consulting for an environmental project for the United States Army Reserve Command, Aaron Killgore believed he was being required to prepare an...more
On October 20, 2022, the Ninth Circuit reversed in part a grant of summary judgment in favor of an employer, finding that the district court misapplied the substantive law of California in holding that Plaintiff’s disclosures...more
In Scheer v. Regents of the University of California, the Second District Court of Appeal held that the McDonnell-Douglas burden-shifting framework applies to claims asserted pursuant to Health & Safety Code Section 1278.5....more
The California Supreme Court has held that the standard for assessing whistleblower retaliation claims under California Labor Code section 1102.5 is not the McDonnell Douglas test, but the more plaintiff-friendly standard...more
The Supreme Court of California provided California employers with important clarification on the standard courts will apply when analyzing an employee’s whistleblower retaliation claim arising under Labor Code Section...more
California employers can expect to see an uptick in whistleblower claims as a result of a recent California Supreme Court ruling that increases the burden on employers to prove that adverse employment actions are based on...more
The California Supreme Court has resolved an inconsistency that has divided the courts as to the proper evidentiary standard necessary to prove a whistleblower retaliation claim....more
On January 27, 2022, in the unanimous decision Wallen Lawson v. PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc., the California Supreme Court (Court) clarified the applicable evidentiary standard for the presentation and evaluation of...more
The California Supreme Court, in a critical decision, has answered a key question regarding whistleblower retaliation claims. Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals certified an important question to the Court...more
In Lawson v. PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc., __ P.3d __, 2022 WL 244731 (Cal., Jan. 27, 2022), the California Supreme Court clarified that whistleblower retaliation claims brought under Labor Code section 1102.5 should not...more
How employers will need to defend California employment lawsuits, Labor Commissioner actions and even arbitrations must evolve come the New Year due to changes in the law that become effective January 1, 2021. In this post, I...more