Category: Whistleblower Protection

Meg Yatauro was employed by the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) as a prison administrator and was assigned to the Wagner Youth Correctional Facility. Following a demotion, Yatauro sued DOC under New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act, claiming she blew the whistle on certain improprieties. When a jury awarded Yatauro $1,000,000 in damages for her emotional distress and economic losses, the State appealed. Yatauro alleged four separate acts…

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Bridgette Bott was a deputy sheriff for Palm Beach County, Florida. On July 11, 2012, the Sheriff’s Office dispatched Bott to investigate an attempted suicide. Dispatch told Bott that a woman “advised her boyfriend took a lot of antidepressants last night and is now swinging the swifter at her because she won’t tell him where his gun is.” Bott spoke with the couple briefly and did not inquire about…

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Fred Bonda worked as a fire inspector for the City of Elizabeth, New Jersey until he retired in 2014. Bonda sued the City, contending that the City had retaliated against him for his whistleblowing activity. Bonda relied on two categories of whistleblowing conduct: (1) reporting that the Fire Chief had instructed him to falsify roll call documents in June 2012; and (2) reporting that his superiors were improperly interfering…

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Bruce Whitman was the Police Chief of the City of Burton, Michigan from 2002 to 2007, when the City’s mayor declined to reappoint him. Whitman then sued the City under Michigan’s Whistleblower Protection Act, claiming that the Mayor’s decision not to reappoint him was prompted by Whitman’s repeated complaints to the Mayor and the City Attorney that the refusal to pay Whitman’s previously accumulated unused sick and personal leave…

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