Another example of this are Compliance Officers. A case strengthened New York’s at will employment statute when a compliance officer was fired for raising a compliance issue. Employee lost at trial and on appeal.
These cases are always more complicated than presented.
Whistleblower protections apply to people who blow the whistle to an outside agency, not idiots who pick fights with powerful people without backup. This is such unfathomable incompetence my first thought was to question whether "compliance officer" was even his actual job title. On that note:
> The Court decided that, unlike the attorney in Wieder, Sullivan’s role in regulatory compliance was not at the core of, nor was it the only purpose of, his job. The court noted that Sullivan’s compliance officer role was only one of the five positions he held, and he was not associated with other compliance officers in a firm where all were subject to self-regulation as members of a common profession, as was the case in Wieder.
I recently investigated someone "fired" from the same position for similar reasons. Realistically, he was laid off as part of an unannounced RIF but played the whistleblower card only after he failed to substantiate claims of race and age discrimination. The DoD was only notified of the supposed compliance failure an entire month after he was let go, and only after two other unrelated defenses failed.
People do get to live their own lives though. I wouldn't know if the subject of this article regrets it, or if it was worth it for them.
Some of the best people in history believed in their own grand purpose strongly enough to just say "fuck it" and ignore the doubters. Some of the worst people did the same though too, so :shrug: .