Friedlander v. Edwards Lifesciences, LLC

Case Updates

The Minnesota Supreme Court held that the 2013 amendments to the MWA defining the phrase “good faith” eliminated the requirement that an employee act with the purpose of exposing an illegality.

The U.S. Chamber filed an amicus brief urging the Minnesota Supreme Court to hold that an employee is protected under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act (“MWA”) only when he or she makes a report for the purpose of exposing an illegality.

Minnesota courts have long held that in order to be protected under the MWA, an employee must make a report for the purpose of exposing an illegality. This requirement protects legitimate whistleblowers who act in the public interest, and at the same time prevents employees from abusing the statute by transforming every disagreement with their employers into a statutorily protected act.

The Chamber’s brief argues that the text and history of the 2013 amendments to the MWA demonstrate that this requirement remains a critical aspect of the MWA. It also explains that doing away with the requirement that putative whistleblowers act with the purpose of exposing an illegality would lead to unreasonable results and would make Minnesota an outlier nationally in whistleblower protection.

The brief was filed jointly with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

Marko J. Mrkonich, Holly M. Robbins, and Joseph D. Weiner of Littler Mendelson P.C. served as counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center.