(The Center Square) – The Washington State Court of Appeals awarded more than $160,000 for attorney fees in a whistleblower lawsuit in a case worth about $7,500 in damages after years of legal wrangling and a cascade of judicial errors.
In 2014 Tammy Reeves filed a whistleblower complaint against the Mason County Sheriff’s Department claiming she had lost out on a promotion in retaliation for a human resources complaint.
Reeves, a corrections officer with the county, had complained about treatment of the staff and the conditions in the jail. When she later applied for one of four open positions as a corporal, she was passed over.
The case was referred to the Office of Administrative Hearings, where an Administrative Law Judge, ruled in favor of Reeves.
Mason County appealed the case in Superior Court, which agreed that there had been retaliation but found a technical error. The case was sent back to OAH for review by a second ALJ.
The second ALJ sided with Mason County.
Reeves then appealed to Superior Court, which found that the second ALJ was in error for overturning the decision because the Superior Court had already agreed there had been retaliation. The case went back to OAH for review by a third ALJ.
The third ALJ sided with Reeves, granting her about $7,500 in damages.
Washington law allows a judge discretion to “award costs and reasonable attorney’ fees to the prevailing party” in a whistleblower case. By this time, Reeves’s legal fees had mounted to more than...
A wave of pro-whistleblower opinions from federal judges suggests the False Claims Act remains on solid ground despite pointed questions from leading conservative judicial voices. Whistleblowers, ...