Elected officials, beware: California Supreme Court Says whistleblower laws won’t protect you
The California Supreme Court has warned office-holders across the state that they blow the whistle at their own peril. In a unanimous opinion issued July 7, the justices ruled that Labor Code § 1102.5, the state’s principal whistle-blower statute, protects employees only, not the elected officials who supervise them.
The case, Brown v. City of Inglewood (S280773), grows out of a years-long clash between Wanda M. Brown, Inglewood’s outspoken treasurer since 1987, and Mayor James T. Butts Jr. Brown, whose office manages hundreds of millions in city investments, publicly accused the mayor in late 2019 of approving an improper $77,000 over-payment to a contractor.
According to her lawsuit, that disclosure triggered swift retaliation. Brown says she was stripped of her seat on the council dais, locked out of key committees, and saw her investment authority chopped from “multi-million-dollar” levels to just $50,000. City computers were deactivated, her auditing role was revoked, and her monthly salary plunged from $8,000 to $1,404.
Brown sued the city, Mayor Butts, and four council members, invoking § 1102.5’s ban on employer retaliation against whistle-blowing employees. A Los Angeles trial judge let the claim proceed, but the Court of Appeal reversed, holding that Brown was an elected official and not an employee under the statute.
Writing for the high court, Justice Martin J. Jenkins agreed. The plain language of § 1106, which defines “employee” for whistle-blower purposes, “does not mention elected officials,” the court said. Unlike the Workers’ Compensation Act, whose definition expressly includes elected officers, the Legislature “deliberately omitted” them here.
“After reviewing the statute’s language, legislative history and context, we conclude that § 1102.5 does not cover elected officials such as Brown,” Jenkins wrote.
The ruling means that city and county treasurers, assessors, council members, and other elected officials who expose misconduct cannot sue for damages under California’s strongest anti-retaliation law. Instead, they must rely on the ballot box, internal political processes, or, in extreme cases, criminal statutes.
Mira Hashmall of Miller Barondess LLP, counsel for Inglewood, hailed the decision as confirmation “that public officials may not weaponize California’s Labor Code protections for political gain.”
Conversely, Brown’s attorney, Rick Kinnan, called the ruling a blow to transparency that “undermines the state’s proud history of protecting whistle-blowers.”
For Brown, the verdict effectively ends her Labor Code claim. More significantly, the opinion leaves California’s 5,000-plus elected municipal officials with no statutory shield if colleagues retaliate for exposing fiscal or ethical lapses.
The Legislature could amend § 1106 to plug that gap, the court noted, but until it does, any elected official thinking of sounding an alarm now knows the risk. As Justice Jenkins’s opinion makes plain, the state’s whistle-blower “network” is powerful, but it stops at the city-hall dais.
#8647 #NoKings #ProDemocracy
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2 comments
There will never be a whistleblower on the Elk Grove City Council. They are all in bed with one another and are very COZY!
Gee, thanks! That's a picture I may never get out of my head now! Ugh!
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