Another Look at the Notice Requirement of the Florida Private Sector Whistleblower’s Act

The Florida Whistleblower’s Act protects employees from being punished by their employer for reporting illegal activity. There is a question about whether employees have to tell their employer about the illegal activity and give them a chance to fix it before they can sue. The law says that employees with 10 or more co-workers can’t be fired, suspended, or demoted for doing the following:
1. Telling the government about illegal activities at work, but only if they first tell their boss in writing and give their employer a chance to fix the problem.
2. Giving information or testifying to a government agency investigating the employer.
3. Refusing to take part in illegal activities at work.
If an employee believes their employer broke this law, they can sue within 2 years of finding out about the illegal action, or within 4 years of the action taking place. If an employee believes they have been retaliated against at work, they can file a lawsuit in the county where it happened, where they live, or where the employer is based. However, they can’t win the lawsuit if they didn’t tell their employer about the illegal activity and give them a chance to fix it, or if the retaliation was for a different reason. The language of the law is not very clear, but when you look closely, it seems like employees have to give their employers written notice if they want to sue under the law. This applies no matter which part of the law they are suing under. If this wasn’t the case, some parts of the law would be pointless. It also wouldn’t make sense for employees to have to follow stricter rules in one part of the law if they could just use a different part with easier rules. This interpretation also makes sense when you look at the history of the law. The Florida Whistleblower’s Act requires employees to notify their employers of illegal activity before pursuing a claim. This requirement is backed by the legislative history of the Act, which shows that the Florida Legislature intended for the notice requirement to apply to both public and private sector employees. However, there are different court decisions on how this requirement should be interpreted. The first reported court case to address the notice requirement for whistleblower claims was Martin v. Honeywell, Inc. in 1995. The court held that written notice to the employer is required for a whistleblower claim to be valid. However, a different court case, Baiton v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., reached a different conclusion, saying that written notice is not always required. Another court case, Potomac Systems Engineering, Inc. v. Deering, also held that written notice is required for a whistleblower claim. The courts have not yet resolved the conflict between these different interpretations. In simple terms, the private sector Whistleblower’s Act says that if an employee thinks their employer is breaking the law, they have to tell their employer about it in writing and give them a chance to fix it before they can file a claim under the act. This is supported by the way the law is written and the history of how it was made. Courts should keep this in mind when deciding how to interpret the notice requirement of the law. The article discusses the private sector Whistleblower’s Act and argues that employees should have to tell their employers about any alleged law violations before they can file a claim. It cites legal cases and legislative history to support this argument, but there are also cases where employees didn’t have to provide written notice. The article ultimately disagrees with a previous article on the topic. Richard D. Tuschman is a lawyer at a firm in Miami that helps employers with labor and employment law. He got his law degree with honors in 1991 and his bachelor’s degree in 1988. This column is from the Labor and Employment Law Section. Its goal is to teach its members about their responsibilities to the public and to make the legal system better.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/another-look-at-the-notice-requirement-of-the-florida-private-sector-whistleblowers-act/