Whistleblower is just a term placed on a person who reveals misconduct in a organization, to people or to those in positions of authority. The whistleblower is just a person, usually a member of staff, in a government agency or private enterprise who makes a disclosure to people or to those in power, of mismanagement, dishonesty, illegality, or several other wrongdoing.
Considering that the 1960s, people value of whistleblower has been increasingly recognized. Federal and state statutes and regulations have been enacted to protect whistleblowers from various forms of retribution. Even with no statute, a number of decisions encourage and protect whistleblowers on grounds of public policy. The federal False Claims Act Whistleblower Attorney (31 U.S.C.A. § 3729) also rewards a whistleblower that brings a lawsuit against a business, which makes a forged claim or commits fraud contrary to the government.
People performing the role of whistleblowers are often the subject material of retaliation by their employers. Normally the employer discharges the whistleblower, who’s often an at-will employee. At-will employees are people with no specific term of employment. The employee may quit at any time and the employer has the best to fire the employee without having to quote a reason. However, the judiciary and legislatures have formed exceptions for whistleblowers which can be at-will employees. Employees who blow the whistle on problems that affect only private interests will generally be unsuccessful in maintaining a reason behind action for expulsion in violation of public policy. As an over-all rule, employees asserting that they were dismissed for disclosing internal corporate misconducts have been unsuccessful in determining public policy exceptions to the at-will rule. It is also seen that grievances about internal company policy don’t involve public policy supporting unjust dismissal suits.
Many states have enforced whistleblower statutes to protect and safeguard the interests of the whistleblower, but these statutes vary widely in coverage. Some statutes tend to use only to public employees, some connect with both public and private employees, and others connect with public employees and employees of public contractors.