By Steve Kardell | Published July 13, 2020 | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Chicago Nurse Claims She Was Fired for Warning About COVID-19 Mask Inadequacies
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Chicago Nurse Claims She Was Fired for Warning About COVID-19 Mask Inadequacies
A nurse in Chicago is claiming wrongful termination after she warned colleagues the masks they were given by Northwestern Memorial Hospital were insufficient protection against the COVID-19 virus. The nurse, Lauri Mazurkiewicz, says she emailed colleagues and supervisors the day before she was terminated, saying N95 face masks are safer than the masks that the Read More
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Monetary Rewards Make Good Incentive for Whistleblowers, but Aren’t the Only Reason They Report Wrongdoing
Over the last decade, a variety of programs have started up in federal agencies that incentivize whistleblowers to come forward with tips about wrongdoing within their companies or organizations, and potentially share in the money recovered through sanctions. The most well-known of these programs is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) whistleblower program, but several Read More
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SEC Issues $1.6 Million Whistleblower Award
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced a $1.6 million award to a whistleblower who provided information that helped form the basis for charges that led to a successful enforcement action. According to the information provided by the SEC, the information submitted by the whistleblower prompted investigators in the Department of Enforcement to look Read More
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Whistleblower Receives More than $760,000 in Retaliation Lawsuit
Coloplast, a Minneapolis-based medical device provider, agreed to pay more than $760,000 to Amy Lestage, who claimed the company retaliated against her after she blew the whistle on company wrongdoing. Lestage, along with two other former employees of Coloplast, filed a False Claims Act case in December 2011. Defendants included Byram Healthcare and other large Read More
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New Whistleblower Laws and Policies In Effect for 2020
There has never been a time in American history when whistleblowers have had more protections afforded to them than they do right now. The last 10 years have seen significant increases in the protections and benefits provided to whistleblowers, and 2020 has seen some new rules go into effect that further enhance those protections. In Read More
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Assisted Living Companies Settle Disability Bias Suit for $2 Million
An assisted living company, Prestige Care, Inc., and its subsidiaries recently agreed to settle a lawsuit from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity commission for $2 million. In the suit, the EEOC alleged the company and its subsidiaries violated disability antidiscrimination laws by refusing to allow employees to work unless they were completely healed, and firing Read More
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Former Hospice Executive Claims Wrongful Termination After Blowing the Whistle on Medicare Fraud
Jake Summers, the former executive director of LHC Group Inc. (an Idaho-based health care group), claims to have been terminated for reporting what he believed to have been Medicare fraud. He has now filed a complaint alleging coworkers performed patient discharges over the phone despite billing Medicare for face-to-face visits, and says the company’s decision Read More
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Judge Rules False Claims Act Suit Against Team Health Holdings, Inc. May Proceed
Team Health Holdings, Inc., a physician staffing firm, will have to face a False Claims Act lawsuit alleging the company overbilled Medicaid and Medicare for services not performed. This is due to a decision by a Texas federal judge who is allowing the case to proceed, saying the two whistleblowers who brought forth the claim Read More
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Triples Award in Wrongful Termination Claim
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled a worker deserved more than $1 million in compensation—more than three times what a jury awarded her—after she was terminated for complaining about not getting properly compensated for securing the largest contract in the business’s history. The court ruled Francoise Parker should have been awarded three times her Read More
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Dallas Independent School District Once Again Becomes Focus of a Whistleblower Claim
The Dallas Independent School District has had several issues in recent years that have made it the target of whistleblower lawsuits. In the most recent case, the district’s chief auditor finds himself under performance review after he flagged millions of dollars’ worth of overpayments in school construction projects. Whistleblower retaliation? That auditor, Steven Martin, was Read More
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