Court Restricts Whistle Blowing Protections for Oregon Workers

The Oregon Court of Appeals has restricted the scope of the important public duty exception to at-will employment in the whistle blower context. The facts were as follows: Ms. Love, the plaintiff, noticed what she considered inadequate training policies. She was unaware of any legal requirement regarding the training but nonetheless, complained about the inadequate policies. Meanwhile, a training accident occurred, involving a death. A federal investigation was being prepared. Plaintiff believed that her superiors were planning to tell federal authorities that certain safety policies had been in place, when in fact they had not been. Plaintiff objected to this possible cover-up and was discharged the very day the investigators were to arrive. Plaintiff sued for common law wrongful discharge. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. In reversing, the Court of Appeals held that summary judgment was proper with regard to the allegation of retaliation for complaints about inadequate safety policies, because there was no evidence Plaintiff was aware of any legal basis for her complaints. But summary judgment was not proper with regard to Plaintiff's allegation of retaliation for objecting to the cover-up because a cover-up is contrary to important societal interests, without reference to specific laws being violated.

Thus, plaintiff was never aware of any legal requirements pertaining to training, therefore her complaints about inadequate training were not objectively reasonable, and so she was not fulfilling an important public duty. In contrast, objecting to the illegal cover-up would fulfill an important public duty, and was thus protected from retaliation by the wrongful discharge action. Bottom line: Whistle blowing is an important public duty protected by a wrongful discharge action only if the whistle blower has both a good faith and objectively reasonable basis for blowing the whistle. This represents a retreat from McQuary v. Bel Air Convalescent Home, Inc., 69 Or App 107, 684 P2d 21, rev den, 298 Or 37 (1984).