Federal Employee Whistleblowers Win Rare Victory

[struggle4progress]

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Mary Jane Wilmoth

The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a ruling today in the case of Day v. Department of Homeland Security. The MSPB held that the new definition of a" protected disclosure" set forth in the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WEPA) applied to cases pending and/or which arose before that law was passed. The Board ruled that the Congress, in enacting the WEPA, intended to "clarify" the scope of disclosures covered under the federal employee whistleblower law, and that this clarification would apply to all pending cases.

The National Whistleblower Center filed a Amicus Curiae brief with the MSPB in which it had strongly urged the MSPB to apply the "clarification" standard and to apply the WPEA’s definition of protected disclosure to all pending cases. The MSPB agreed with this analysis ...

http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2013/06/articles/news-1/federal-employee-whistleblowers-win-rare-victory/

[struggle4progress]

1. MSPB Backs WPEA Expansion: First Ruling Applies Anti-Retaliation Rights to Pending Cases

by Dylan Blaylock on June 27, 2013 ( The Whistleblogger / 2013 )

Yesterday, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) backed an expansive application of last year’s Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) in the law’s first significant test case. In Day v. Department of Homeland Security, a 2-1 Board decision applied WPEA anti-retaliation rights to pending cases. Board Member Mark Robbins dissented.The majority opinion – by Susan Grundmann and Anne Wagner – explained that the WPEA clarifies rights that Congress previously had enacted repeatedly. Therefore the application of the law toward pending cases neither changes expectations nor creates an unfair burden on agencies challenging whistleblower allegations. More specifically, the decision determines that the law’s protection applies to employees who make disclosures to their supervisors as part of their job duties ...

http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/44-2013/2811-mspb-backs-wpea-expansion-first-ruling-applies-anti-retaliation-rights-to-pending-cases