Nearly a decade after his whistleblower complaint, a North Carolina poultry farmer is being sued by Perdue

This article features Government Accountability Project whistleblower client, Craig Watts, and was originally published here.

In 2015, a Robeson County poultry farmer filed a federal whistleblower complaint alleging that Perdue Farms retaliated against him after he publicly stated that Perdue had sent him sick birds that the company refused to help treat.

Some were deformed, he said. Others were forced to grow so fast that the tired and heavy birds spent most of their time in their nests, causing feathers to fall off. Some died of apparent illnesses just days after arriving at his farm, Craig Watts alleged in a whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Nearly a decade later, Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, is suing Watts and the DOL. The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, challenges the constitutionality of Watts’ case.

Over the years, the case was dismissed by an administrative judge, but court battles revived the case.

“It’s much bigger than Craig versus Perdue,” Watts said of his fight with Perdue. “It’s all Davids versus all Goliaths. And I love how that story ends, I can tell you that.”

If Perdue’s case is successful, it could end protections for whistleblowers under several state laws, said Dana Gold, director of the Democracy Protection Initiative at the Government...

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