HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - Connecticut’s whistleblower law protects public employees who report mismanagement and incompetence – even their own – but workers must prove they were retaliated against and not merely disciplined for poor performance, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled.
Upholding the demotion of a Department Public Health epidemiologist who repeatedly failed to vet applicants for public health positions, the Supreme Court said she failed to provide any evidence she was singled out for mistreatment after reporting one of her mistakes.
Juanita Estrada had been reported for performance issues since 2014, including lacking knowledge of relevant regulations and mishandling a case involving the removal of a local health officer. Estrada’s duties included reviewing applicants for the job of municipal health director. State law required health directors to be licensed physicians or hold a masters in public health.
In May 2015, Estrada approved Ruonon Wang as Hartford’s acting director of health without checking his credentials. A month later, a city employee revealed Wang lacked a master’s in public health. Estrada notified her supervisor, Ellen Blaschinski, and Wang was removed. Estrada was already working under a performance improvement plan for failing to log complaints and failed to log the Wang complaint, although Blaschinski didn’t discipline her for this.
A week later, Estrada again failed to check a municipal health director’s credentials. This time, Blaschinski issued a reprimand, followed by an unsatisfactory annual rating. Estrada received another unsatisfactory rating in 2016 for resisting her performance improvement plan and mishandling a complaint about yet another town health director. Finally, Estrada was demoted one grade to epidemiologist 3.
Estrada filed a grievance under her union bargaining agreement, without making a whistleblower complaint, and her grievance was denied. Then she amended her complaint to add a whistleblower claim under Connecticut Section 4-61, saying her supervisor had retaliated against her for reporting Wang.
A referee concluded the department had retaliated against Estrada for making a protected whistleblower complaint. The department appealed to trial and appeals court, both of which ruled against Estrada.
The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s decision in a June 11 opinion by Justice Andrew J. McDonald.
State law allowed Estrada to file a whistleblower complaint over the failure to catch Wang’s lack of credentials even if she was the one to blame, the Supreme Court ruled. The law protects state employees for reporting “any matter” involving mismanagement or the violation of state laws, the court said.
“Whether Estrada was reporting her own error in failing to ensure Wang’s credentials were accurate or revealing that the department had no policy to guide the review of credentials …Estrada’s disclosure concerned the misconduct of a state department,” the court said. “It is unlikely the legislature would have wanted employees disciplined for bringing their own actions to light, as that would discourage disclosure and undermine the statutory goals.”
That said, federal courts have interpreted similar whistleblower laws to mean employees can’t use them “to shield themselves from the consequences of their own misconduct or failures,” the court observed.
Estrada failed to produce any evidence her demotion was related to her whistleblower complaint other than the two were close to each other in time, the court concluded. In fact, Estrada’s supervisor took no action against her when Wang’s lack of credentials first came up. And the referee ignored three identical cases where identical union grievances over employment actions were held to be for just cause.