In the upcoming Supreme Court term, a pivotal employment case is on the docket: Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC. This case will dissect and evaluate a key element of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), specifically regarding whistleblowers. The big question at stake? Just how much evidence does a whistleblower need to provide to be shielded under the law.
Congress passed SOX in 2002 to protect employees who spot and report wrongdoing in publicly traded companies. It ensures that these employees will not face workplace discrimination for their actions and allows them to claim compensation or job reinstatement if they feel their rights have been infringed upon. If a whistleblower wants to stake a SOX claim, they may file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor, who then checks it against a standard measure of proof.
This standard requires the whistleblower to demonstrate that their actions were a “contributing factor” in any negative job consequences they faced. Courts, however, have diverged on whether or not a whistleblower must prove that their employer acted with retaliatory intent. Some courts, like the Fifth Circuit, have said that whistleblowers do not have to prove an employer’s retaliatory intent to make a SOX claim. They view “contributing factor” as a low burden of proof which simply requires a whistleblower to show that their whistleblowing in some way affected the employer’s decision to take an adverse action. The higher burden of proof then falls on the employer to...
A US judge has dismissed veteran singer Smokey Robinson's defamation claim against four former housekeepers who have accused him of sexual assault. The women sued the Motown star, 86, last year fo...