Whistleblower retaliation suit by vet proceeds
This article excerpt features Government Accountability Project’s whistleblower client, Dr. Karen Iovino, and was originally published here.
“A whistleblower’s retaliatory termination suit against her former employer has survived dismissal, but the judge limited her allegations to those presented in her complaint to the Office of the Inspector General, or OIG.
The veterinarian plaintiff alleged that her government contractor employer terminated her in retaliation for her formal complaint that the company mistreated dogs, defrauded the government, and abused its hiring and firing powers.
The employer sought to strike the plaintiff’s allegations, arguing that she had not exhausted her administrative remedies.
But Judge Thomas J. Cullen of the Western District of Virginia concluded that all the plaintiff’s ‘present complaint does is support the broad allegations in her Agency Filing and OIG Complaint with specific examples of the general types of misconduct alleged’.
Michael Stapleton Associates, or MSA, is a security company under contract with the Department of State to train explosive detection dogs for anti-terror programs run by foreign countries and the U.S. abroad. MSA trains and cares for the dogs at a center in Winchester, Virginia.
Dr. Karen Iovino, a licensed veterinarian, was hired in October 2015 by MSA on a part-time basis as ‘Veterinarian in Charge’ to help the onsite veterinary hospital get its operating license....
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