A lawsuit filed by a longtime employee of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture can go forward alleging the department discriminated against him for coming forward as a whistleblower.
Richard Herchenbach of Lincoln sued the department in 2019 saying he had been passed over for a promotion to program manager that year for making internal complaints about not being allowed to report animal neglect and cruelty to local law enforcement.
As an inspector in the department’s Commercial Dog and Cat Program, he said, he had an obligation to make such reports.
In 2017, Herchenbach met with the state personnel manager and an attorney with the Department of Agriculture about the department's refusal to allow him to make the reports, his attorney, Jon Rehm, said in the lawsuit.
He said Herchenbach sought protection as a whistleblower under the State Government Effectiveness Act and filed a complaint with the Office of Public Counsel, which in a preliminary investigation found reasonable grounds to conclude wrongdoing by the department in failing to report allegations of animal neglect and cruelty.
At a hearing last month, the Department of Agriculture's...
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