Reasonable belief is all that’s needed under California Whistleblower Protection Act

An employee recently expressed to his supervisor that he felt a task he was assigned violated federal law. He was later fired, and he claimed his termination was in retaliation for raising his concerns. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal (whose rulings apply to all California employers) decided he was covered by California’s Whistleblower Protection Act.

Background

Aaron Killgore was employed by SpecPro. While consulting on an environmental project for the U.S. Army Reserve, he thought he was being required to prepare an environmental assessment in a way that violated federal law. He believed that consideration of prior helicopter activity at the site was significant for an evaluation of the proposal.

Prior helicopter missions had been happening at the site for more than a decade, but there was no data about their environmental impact. Killgore thought there may have been prior refueling missions, which required consideration of potential oil spills, the introduction of invasive species, soil erosion, and other environmental impacts.

Killgore was fired shortly after reporting the suspected illegality to Chief Laura Caballero, one of his supervisors at SpecPro. In his lawsuit, he alleged he was fired in violation of the California Whistleblower Protection Act. He claimed he was retaliated against for disclosing what he reasonably believed to be violations of federal law in the preparation of the environmental assessment and was fired for refusing to participate in illegal activity.

Whistleblower retaliation

To assert a claim for whistleblower retaliation, Killgore had to: