Title: Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S067211
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: April 8, 2021

No. 11	
April 8, 2021	
761
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE 
STATE OF OREGON
Kyle K. WALKER,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
STATE OF OREGON,  
by and through the Semi-Independent State Agency,
the Oregon Travel Information Council,
branded and doing business as  
the Oregon Travel Experience,
Respondent on Review.
(CC 15CV02202) (CA A163420) (SC S067211)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 16, 2020.
Shayna M. Rogers, Garrett Hemann Robertson, PC, 
Salem, Oregon, argued the cause for petitioner on review. 
Luke W. Reese filed the briefs. Also on the briefs was 
Elizabeth L. Polay.
Denise G. Fjordbeck, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, 
argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on 
review. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney 
General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
NAKAMOTO, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and 
the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further 
proceedings.
______________
	
*  Appeal from Marion County Circuit Court, Mary Mertens James, Judge. 
299 Or App 432, 450 P3d 19 (2019).
762	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
763
	
NAKAMOTO, J.
	
An employee who is fired from an at-will position 
may, in some cases, assert a common-law claim of wrong-
ful discharge. In this case, plaintiff persuaded a jury that 
her public employer had wrongfully discharged her for 
blowing the whistle on what she reasonably believed to be 
her employer’s violations of law. The trial court had denied 
her employer’s motions for a directed verdict, and the court 
entered a judgment that awarded her damages on that 
claim. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that, not-
withstanding the jury verdict in her favor, plaintiff’s action 
had not served an important public policy. Walker v. Oregon 
Travel Information Council, 299 Or App 432, 450 P3d 19 
(2019).
	
We now reverse the Court of Appeals and remand 
the case to that court for further proceedings. The Court 
of Appeals incorrectly concluded that the threshold issue—
whether plaintiff had identified an important public policy 
that permitted her to assert the tort of wrongful discharge—
depended on whether she had reasonably believed that her 
employer had violated the law; instead, that threshold issue 
properly turns on sources of law that support the asserted 
public policy and whether those sources of law are tied to 
the acts by plaintiff that led her employer to discharge her. 
We further conclude that whether plaintiff had a reasonable 
belief that her employer had violated the law—the disputed 
element of whistleblowing on appeal—is a question of fact 
for the factfinder and that the record contains evidence that 
supports the jury’s finding.
I.  BACKGROUND
	
Plaintiff Kyle Walker, the chief executive officer 
of a semi-independent state agency, the Oregon Travel 
Experience, was fired by the agency’s governing body, the 
Oregon Travel Information Council. She was an at-will 
employee, meaning that, generally, “in the absence of a con-
tract or legislation to the contrary,” the Council could dis-
charge her “at any time and for any cause.” Nees v. Hocks, 
272 Or 210, 216, 536 P2d 512 (1975). Plaintiff filed an action 
against defendant “the State of Oregon, by and through * 
* 
* 
764	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
the * 
* 
* Council,” and asserted two claims. One claim was 
for whistleblowing as a public employee, a statutory claim 
governed by ORS 659A.203(1).1 The other was a common-law 
claim for wrongful discharge, a tort that this court recog-
nized in Nees as protecting at-will employees who are dis-
charged from employment for engaging in protected conduct.
	
Defendant’s motions for a directed verdict on plain-
tiff’s wrongful discharge claim are at issue on review. 
Accordingly, we review the evidence in the light most favor-
able to plaintiff, because the jury returned a verdict for her. 
Green v. Uncle Don’s Mobile City, 279 Or 425, 427, 568 P2d 
1375 (1977). We recite the facts consistently with that stan-
dard of review.
	
The Oregon Travel Experience (OTE) is a semi-
independent agency responsible for blue roadway informa-
tional signs, historical marker signs, and rest areas along 
Oregon’s highways. The Council, OTE’s governing body, is 
composed of 11 volunteer members. The Council has the 
authority, according to its bylaws, to establish an Executive 
Committee, whose responsibilities include appointing the 
agency’s CEO2 and evaluating the CEO’s performance. 
The CEO of OTE is responsible for the agency’s day-to-day 
operations and serves “at the pleasure of the Council.” ORS 
377.835(7) (2013).3 The CEO is also in administrative con-
trol of the Council and is authorized to hire and set the 
	
1  The 2015 version of the public employee whistleblower statute applied to 
plaintiff’s claim. In part, ORS 659A.203(1) (2015) provided that “it is an unlawful 
employment practice for any public employer to” 
	
“(b)  Prohibit any employee from disclosing, or take or threaten to take 
disciplinary action against an employee for the disclosure of any information 
that the employee reasonably believes is evidence of: 
	
“(A)  A violation of any federal or state law, rule or regulation by the 
state, agency or political subdivision.”
Unless otherwise stated, further references to ORS 659A.203 in this opinion are 
to the 2015 version.
	
2  Although plaintiff’s statutory title was “director,” the parties referred to 
plaintiff as the “CEO” within the agency and throughout the litigation.
	
3  The governing statute at the time, ORS 377.835(7) (2013), provided: 
	
“The council shall be under the administrative control of a director who 
is appointed by and who holds office at the pleasure of the council. The direc-
tor of the council may appoint all subordinate officers and employees of the 
council and may prescribe their duties and fix their compensation. The direc-
tor of the council may delegate to any subordinate officer or employee any 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
765
salary for OTE’s paid staff. Id. The CEO’s salary, however, 
is under the exclusive authority of the Council according to 
its bylaws.
	
Three months before the Council appointed plain-
tiff as CEO in December 2012, the Secretary of State con-
ducted an audit that determined that greater transpar-
ency and accountability was needed within the agency. An 
audit performed the previous year also recommended that 
the Council establish an employee classification and salary 
structure for staff. Plaintiff was hired to bring the agency 
into compliance with the Secretary of State’s audit and to 
implement the audit’s recommendations. According to her 
employment offer, the Council would not adjust plaintiff’s 
salary during her first year as CEO.
	
Soon after plaintiff became CEO, conflict arose 
between her and the Council. Friction stemmed from plain-
tiff’s attempt to fulfill the audit’s recommendation to cre-
ate a more objective salary structure for staff. The Council 
was concerned that OTE’s management compensation was 
too high and that it was “top-heavy.” Both plaintiff and 
the Council understood that salary adjustments had to be 
made from the “top-down”—meaning that plaintiff’s salary, 
as CEO, would establish the benchmark for setting other 
staff salaries—but the parties disagreed on how to model 
a new salary structure. Plaintiff intended to rely on the 
Department of Administrative Services (DAS) “Hay” system 
salary range as a compensation model for OTE. However, as 
a semi-independent agency, OTE is not required to follow 
the DAS system salary range. Thus, the Council instructed 
plaintiff not to rely on the DAS system salary range as a 
compensation model and told her to develop a salary struc-
ture that complied with the Council’s stated objectives and 
proposed budget instead.
	
Plaintiff disagreed with the Council’s instruction 
and relied on the DAS system salary range as a model in 
proposing a new salary structure. She concluded that it 
was the best way to establish an objective salary scheme 
administrative duty, function or power imposed upon the council by or pur-
suant to law.”
References to ORS 377.835(7) in this opinion are to the 2013 version.
766	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
and to bring the agency’s salary structure into compliance 
with the audit. She evaluated CEO compensation at other 
semi-independent state agencies to determine an appro-
priate “benchmark” CEO salary and provided her salary 
structure proposal to the Council in June 2013. The Council 
was unhappy with plaintiff’s proposal. The Council believed 
that plaintiff’s inclusion of an adjustment to her own sal-
ary, before the one-year mark of employment, was plain-
tiff’s demand for a raise and a failure to accept the Council’s 
authority to set her compensation. Plaintiff’s view was that 
her proposal was not a demand for a raise, but rather that 
her salary was included in the report because it was used as 
a benchmark to inform the Council on how the remaining 
salaries would cascade down from her own as the highest.
	
In January 2014, plaintiff implemented the new 
staff salary structure without giving prior notice to the 
Council. Plaintiff had statutory authority under ORS 
377.835(7) to implement the new salary structure without 
first garnering Council approval. That statute authorized 
the CEO to “fix the[ 
] compensation” for staff. Despite her 
statutory authority, plaintiff had earlier agreed to share 
with the Council her changes to the initial salary proposal 
so that the Council could ensure that the salary changes 
conformed to the budget. The Council did not learn of the 
new salary structure implementation until mid-February.
	
Once the Council learned about the new staff sal-
aries, the Council chair requested that plaintiff meet with 
the Executive Committee on March 12, 2014, to discuss 
plaintiff’s actions regarding the salary structure. Before 
that meeting, plaintiff’s executive assistant, at plaintiff’s 
direction, asked the Oregon Department of Justice whether 
the meeting would be considered a public meeting and 
would require notice under Oregon’s Public Meetings Law. 
An attorney with the Department of Justice advised that 
the meeting would need to be noticed, pursuant to ORS 
192.630(1), as a meeting of the agency’s governing body. 
Plaintiff’s executive assistant then asked the Council chair 
whether the meeting should be noticed, and the Council 
chair told her that the meeting did not need to be noticed. 
Although plaintiff knew that it was her responsibility, as 
CEO, to provide notice of public meetings—and that the 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
767
March 2014 meeting would be held in violation of Oregon’s 
public meetings law—she did not want to defy the chair’s 
instruction because she knew that she served “at the plea-
sure of the [C]ouncil” and feared that she already was at 
risk of being terminated at the meeting.
	
Plaintiff was not terminated at the March 2014 
meeting; however, conflict regarding plaintiff’s and the 
Council’s respective roles and authority persisted. In light 
of the continued conflict, on April 8, 2014, plaintiff sent a 
memorandum to Michael Jordan, the chief operations officer 
of the State of Oregon and the head of DAS. As the state’s 
chief operations officer, Jordan acted as the Governor’s man-
ager over Oregon’s executive branch. In the memorandum, 
plaintiff detailed thirteen concerns that she had about the 
Council’s actions, including the following:
	
“6.  The Executive Committee is currently out of com-
pliance with current Council operating procedures, and 
statute regarding roles and authorities.”
	
“* 
* 
* 
* 
*
	
“11.  The Chair and Executive Committee have vio-
lated public meeting law.”
	
“12.  The Executive Committee are [sic] attempting to 
micromanage agency operations under the guise of ‘broad 
direction’ without Council authority directing how the sal-
ary structure should be changed and how employees will 
be rated on performance evaluations without regard to the 
Classification and Salary study. They do not recognize the 
authority of the CEO per statute regarding these matters.”
	
“* 
* 
* 
* 
*
	
“Over the past three weeks this has escalated to a point 
that intervention is needed to prevent the agency from 
moving further into conflict, to reduce organizational risk 
and to mitigate the potential for unnecessary public expo-
sure or employee litigation. * 
* 
*
	
“I am deeply saddened by the situation. As an elected 
[sic] official and representative of the public trust, my 
ethics and background in public governance prevent me 
from being a party to or condoning to [sic] these actions. 
I am unwilling to support the direction of the Executive 
Committee without the involvement of the entire Council, 
768	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
their willingness to adhere to statute and public meeting 
law, and operate in a transparent and accountable manner.”
	
The Council chair acknowledged that, after plain-
tiff sent her memorandum to Jordan, the Governor’s office 
called the Council chair to alert her that plaintiff had 
complained to Jordan. Conflict between plaintiff and the 
Council continued through the spring and summer before 
the Council ultimately terminated plaintiff’s employment in 
October 2014. Thus, at trial, plaintiff had evidence that the 
Council was aware of her complaint before her discharge.
	
Following her termination, plaintiff initiated this 
action for common-law wrongful discharge and statutory 
whistleblowing under ORS 659A.203(1)(b). Plaintiff alleged 
that her memorandum to Jordan qualified as protected 
whistleblowing. Plaintiff contended that she had fulfilled 
an important public duty by reporting the Council’s illegal 
conduct, namely, that the Council’s March 12, 2014, meeting 
was held in violation of the public meetings law and that the 
Council had interfered with plaintiff’s management of OTE 
in violation of her statutory authority to set employee com-
pensation and administer OTE generally.
	
While the statutory whistleblowing claim was tried 
to the court sitting in equity, based on the equitable nature 
of the remedies that the 2015 version of the statute then 
afforded, plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim was tried 
to a jury. The trial court denied defendant’s motions for a 
directed verdict on the tort claim after plaintiff’s case-in-
chief and after the close of all the evidence.
	
After explaining that certain kinds of protected 
whistleblowing may support a wrongful discharge claim, 
the trial court instructed the jury at length as to what acts 
do and do not constitute protected whistleblowing. The court 
defined whistleblowing as “disclosing information that the 
plaintiff reasonably believed was evidence that her employer 
had engaged in a violation of a state or federal law, rule, or 
regulation.” Among other things, the jury instructions spec-
ified eight different circumstances in which a plaintiff’s dis-
closures would not constitute whistleblowing. One of those 
concerned the reasonableness of plaintiff’s belief about her 
employer’s violations of law. The jury was instructed that if 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
769
“[p]laintiff lacked an objectively reasonable belief (i.e., a belief 
that a reasonable person in similar circumstance would be 
expected to have) that the information that she disclosed 
would reveal a violation of law,” then she did not engage 
in whistleblowing. Additionally, the jury was separately 
instructed that “[p]laintiff and council members disagreed 
about the scope of their respective roles and responsibilities 
in running the agency” and that “[t]hose disagreements are 
not whistleblowing.”
	
The jury found in plaintiff’s favor and awarded her 
$1.2 million in damages. Specifically, the jury found that 
 
(1) plaintiff had engaged in whistleblowing as the trial court 
had narrowly defined it; (2) plaintiff’s act of whistleblowing 
had been a substantial factor in the Council’s decision to 
discharge her; and (3) plaintiff had suffered damages as a 
result of her discharge. Despite the jury’s verdict, the trial 
court determined that plaintiff had not proved her statutory 
whistleblower claim, and it dismissed that claim.
	
Defendant filed a motion for judgment notwith-
standing the verdict on the wrongful discharge claim, argu-
ing that plaintiff’s reports did not constitute whistleblowing, 
that plaintiff had failed to present evidence that a protected 
disclosure was a substantial factor in her termination, and 
that the wrongful discharge claim never should have been 
submitted to the jury because an adequate statutory rem-
edy existed. The trial court denied the motion and entered a 
judgment for plaintiff on the wrongful discharge claim.
	
Both parties appealed. Plaintiff assigned error to 
the trial court’s dismissal of her statutory whistleblower 
claim. Defendant cross-appealed, challenging the court’s 
denial of its motions for directed verdict and motion for 
judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the wrongful dis-
charge claim and the court’s submission of that claim to 
the jury. Defendant asserted that wrongful discharge is 
narrowly defined and that plaintiff’s report to Jordan that 
defendant had violated the public meetings law did not 
provide a basis for a wrongful discharge claim. Defendant 
had two arguments: first, that plaintiff had created the vio-
lation, because it was her responsibility to provide public 
notice of the March 2014 Council meeting, and second, that 
770	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
reporting the violation did not rise to the level of fulfilling 
an important public duty, because plaintiff had no duty to 
send the memorandum to Jordan and because Jordan had 
no authority to address the alleged violations of law.
	
The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment in favor 
of plaintiff on the wrongful discharge claim and affirmed 
the dismissal of plaintiff’s statutory claim. Regarding the 
wrongful discharge claim, the Court of Appeals noted that 
an employee’s discharge from at-will employment may 
be actionable when the employee is discharged for fulfill-
ing an important public duty. Walker, 299 Or App at 446. 
The court also explained that, to determine what consti-
tutes an important public duty, “courts are to review stat-
utes and other sources of authority to determine whether 
there is a ‘substantial public policy’ that would be thwarted 
if the employer were allowed to discharge the employee 
without liability.” Id. (internal citation omitted). The court 
acknowledged that, under its case law, ORS 659A.203(1) 
“is a statutory source of the important public duty to report 
government wrongdoing that can support a common-law 
wrongful-discharge claim.” Id. at 447. The court added, how-
ever, that not every report of employer wrongdoing rises to 
the level of fulfilling an important public duty. Id. In the 
court’s view, a plaintiff must have had an “objectively rea-
sonable belief” that she was reporting a violation of law for 
the report to constitute both protected whistleblowing and 
fulfillment of an important public duty, and the court held 
that “[w]hether plaintiff had an objectively reasonable belief 
is a question of law for the court.” Id.
	
Applying those principles to the facts of the case, 
the Court of Appeals concluded that plaintiff did not have 
an objectively reasonable belief that the Council had vio-
lated the law. The Court of Appeals reasoned that most of 
plaintiff’s complaints in her memorandum to Jordan—with 
the exception of the public meetings law violation and the 
Council’s noncompliance with plaintiff’s statutory author-
ity as director—”described differences of opinion between 
plaintiff and the Council concerning governance and ‘best 
practices.’ 
” Id. The Court of Appeals then examined whether 
plaintiff had a reasonable belief that the Council violated 
plaintiff’s statutory authority as CEO and violated the 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
771
public meetings law. Id. at 448-49. In the court’s view, the 
evidence did not support a reasonable belief on plaintiff’s 
part that the Council had violated the law in either respect. 
Id. at 449. Therefore, the court concluded, the trial court 
had erred in denying defendant’s motions for a directed ver-
dict on plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim. Id.
II.  ANALYSIS
	
We granted plaintiff’s petition for review to address 
(1) the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that plaintiff had failed 
to establish that, by reporting the Council’s violations of 
law, she had engaged in conduct covered by the wrongful 
discharge tort and (2) that court’s determination that the 
“objectively reasonable belief” element of whistleblowing is 
a question of law for the court. Plaintiff argues that, when 
the Court of Appeals considered whether she had engaged 
in protected conduct for purposes of her wrongful discharge 
claim, the court applied an incorrect “legal error” standard 
of review to the “objectively reasonable belief” element of 
whistleblowing and failed to view the evidence in the light 
most favorable to her. Defendant responds that the Court of 
Appeals correctly understood that the “objectively reason-
able belief” element of whistleblowing is a question of law for 
the court and that, even if the facts are viewed in the light 
most favorable to plaintiff, she failed to establish that she 
had fulfilled an important public duty.
	
As the parties’ arguments and the opinion by the 
Court of Appeals reflect, two legal issues are at play in this 
case: first, whether the activity that plaintiff claims led to 
her discharge permitted her to assert her wrongful dis-
charge claim and, second, whether she proved the element of 
whistleblowing that requires the plaintiff to show that she 
had a reasonable belief that her employer had violated the 
law. As we discuss below, those legal issues, albeit related, 
are functionally different from one another and analytically 
distinct in this case. Ultimately, we reverse the Court of 
Appeals because (1) plaintiff was entitled to rely on whistle-
blowing under ORS 659A.203(1)(b) to establish protected 
activity under the tort and (2) the “objectively reasonable 
belief” element of whistleblowing at trial is a question of 
772	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
fact, not a question of law, which makes all the difference in 
the standard of review that applies.
A.  Wrongful Discharge Claim Based on Whistleblowing
	
We first address whether plaintiff could assert a 
tortious wrongful discharge claim based on her claimed 
protected activity, namely, blowing the whistle on conduct 
by her employer that she believed was in violation of Oregon 
law. To resolve that issue, and to clarify the tort for the bar 
and bench, we embark on a review of the relatively small 
number of leading cases in which the court’s decision cen-
tered on the underpinnings of the tort.
	
Almost all states recognize a cause of action for dis-
charging an employee, including an at-will employee, in vio-
lation of public policy, with the vast majority of those states 
permitting the employee to bring a tort claim for wrong-
ful discharge. Restatement (Third) of Employment Law 
§  5.01 comment a and Reporters’ Notes (2014). In Nees v. 
Hocks, 272 Or 210, 218, 536 P2d 512 (1975), this court first 
recognized that “there can be circumstances in which an 
employer discharges an employee for such a socially unde-
sirable motive that the employer must respond in damages 
for any injury done.” In Nees, the employer discharged the 
plaintiff because she had performed jury service. In affirm-
ing the employer’s liability in tort, this court examined 
sources of public policy favoring jury service, including the 
Oregon Constitution, statutes, and decisional law, and con-
cluded that, if “an employer were permitted with impunity 
to discharge an employee for fulfilling her obligation of jury 
duty, the jury system would be adversely affected.” Id. at 
219. In contrast, the following year, the court decided that 
the plaintiff in Campbell v. Ford Industries, Inc., 274 Or 243, 
252, 546 P2d 141 (1976), who was discharged for seeking to 
inspect corporate records in his capacity as a shareholder, 
had failed to state a claim for wrongful discharge. The court 
observed that the primary basis for the right to examine 
corporate records “is not one of public policy, but the private 
and proprietary interest of stockholders, as owners of the 
corporation,” and that the plaintiff in Nees was discharged 
for conduct “related much more directly to her rights as 
an employee.” Id. at 249-51. From its beginning, then, the 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
773
wrongful discharge tort developed with an emphasis on the 
important public policy underlying the plaintiff’s activity 
that the tort fortifies.
	
Thereafter, in a series of three cases, the court 
turned to deciding the availability of the tort when the 
plaintiff has alternative statutory remedies. First, in Walsh 
v. Consolidated Freightways, 278 Or 347, 352-53, 563 P2d 
1205 (1977), the court held that the plaintiff could not assert 
a wrongful discharge claim when a federal statute provided 
the plaintiff with full remedies for objecting to unsafe work-
ing conditions, his claimed protected activity. In Brown v. 
Transcon Lines, 284 Or 597, 588 P2d 1087 (1978), the court 
recognized that an employer wrongfully discharges an 
employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim, id. at 
604, and then analyzed whether a state statute that pro-
vided some remedies precluded the plaintiff from pursuing 
a wrongful discharge claim. Ultimately, the court held that 
the statutory remedies then available were inadequate and 
that the legislature had not intended to abolish or negate 
the tort claim. Id. at 611-12. And in Holien v. Sears, Roebuck 
and Co., 298 Or 76, 689 P2d 1292 (1984), this court similarly 
held that, through the statutes making sex discrimination 
an unlawful employment practice, the legislature had not 
intended to eliminate a common law remedy and that the 
remedies available to the plaintiff at the time under state 
and federal antidiscrimination statutes did not provide the 
plaintiff with necessary make-whole relief. Id. at 96-97.
	
That same year, in Delaney v. Taco Time Int’l, 297 
Or 10, 681 P2d 114 (1984), this court returned to the ques-
tion whether the employer’s decision to discharge the plain-
tiff for engaging in claimed protected activity amounted to 
such a “socially undesirable motive” that the employer must 
be held liable in tort for damages. Delaney involved the 
employer’s termination of the manager of one its restaurants 
after he refused to sign a report that contained false deroga-
tory statements about a Black employee whom the manager 
had fired to make room for a white employee, at his district 
manager’s suggestion. 297 Or at 12-13. The court held that 
the plaintiff proved the tort because of his discharge on the 
basis that he was required, but refused, to sign a false and 
potentially defamatory statement. Id. at 14.
774	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
	
To explain its holding, the court described its 
wrongful discharge cases to that point as falling into “three 
general categories”: (1) a case like Nees, which the court 
described as involving a plaintiff who “was discharged for 
fulfilling a societal obligation”; (2) cases in which the plain-
tiff pursued a private statutory right, like Campbell and 
Brown, with the plaintiff in Brown establishing a wrongful 
discharge claim because the right pursued “related directly 
to the plaintiff’s role as an employee” and the statute “was 
legislative recognition of an important public policy”; and 
(3) cases like Walsh, “where an adequate existing remedy 
protects the interests of society so that an additional rem-
edy of wrongful discharge will not be accorded.” Delaney, 
297 Or at 15-16. While the court in Delaney likened the 
plaintiff’s protected activity to that of the plaintiff in Nees, 
that is, fulfilling a societal obligation, id. at 17, the court did 
not suggest that it was describing a limited set of protected 
activities on which an employee could rely when seeking to 
hold an employer liable for wrongful discharge based on the 
employer’s “socially undesirable motive.” See also Patton v. 
 
J. C. Penney Co., 301 Or 117, 120-22, 719 P2d 854 (1986), over-
ruled in part on other grounds by McGanty v. Staudenraus, 
321 Or 532, 549, 901 P2d 841 (1995) (affirming dismissal of 
a wrongful discharge claim after reviewing precedent and 
observing that the plaintiff did not allege that his personal 
relationship with another employee, which triggered his dis-
charge, was in some way protected by statute or involved an 
interest of public importance).
	
And in neither of the court’s two most recent cases 
since Delaney in which it has closely examined wrongful 
discharge claims has the court abandoned the focus on 
evaluating—through review of sources of law—whether an 
important public policy at the core of the employee’s claimed 
protected activity would be frustrated by permitting the 
employer to discharge the employee with impunity. In the 
first, Babick v. Oregon Arena Corp., 333 Or 401, 40 P3d 1059 
(2002), the trial court had dismissed the complaint because 
the plaintiffs, private security employees at a concert arena 
who had been fired for arresting concert patrons who were 
using illegal substances, had failed to state a claim for 
relief. On review, this court referred to two “[e]xamples” of 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
775
circumstances in which an employer’s discharge of an at-will 
employee could be wrongful and give rise to tort liability: 
“(1) when the discharge is for exercising a job-related right 
that reflects an important public policy” and “(2) when the 
discharge is for fulfilling some important public duty.” Id. at 
407. The court proceeded to analyze whether the plaintiffs’ 
alleged protected activity, carrying out a duty to make citi-
zen arrests of lawbreakers, was supported by an important 
public policy by reviewing statutes that the plaintiffs offered 
as supporting sources of law. The court concluded that the 
statutes, such as those governing training and licensing for 
private security personnel and generally permitting citizen 
arrests, failed to support a “substantial public policy” that 
required “the kinds of acts that allegedly triggered plain-
tiffs’ discharge.” Id. at 410.
	
And in this court’s most recent decision on the 
wrongful discharge tort, Lamson v. Crater Lake Motors, Inc., 
346 Or 628, 216 P3d 852 (2009), the court again focused on 
the sources of law expressing the substantial public policy 
on which the employee relies and the relationship between 
the employer’s discharge of the employee and frustration 
of that policy. In that case, the plaintiff contended that his 
employer discharged him for his internal complaint to man-
agement about the use of an outside sales firm, which he 
thought employed unlawful sales practices, and for refus-
ing to attend the sales event with that firm, even as an 
observer. Id. at 633. The court accepted the plaintiff’s theory 
that Oregon laws reflected an important public policy that 
prohibits and seeks to prevent deceptive sales practices. 
 
Id. at 638. But the court then closely examined the plain-
tiff’s factual theories about why he was discharged and the 
relationship between those theories and the public policy to 
prohibit and prevent deceptive sales practices. Id. at 639-40. 
 
To explain why the plaintiff’s internal protest related to 
those types of practices had not “served a public duty or 
interest,” id. at 639, this court observed that the plaintiff 
had not been directed to engage in deceptive practices him-
self and had not taken the kind of action to stop the prac-
tices that the law recognized, id. at 640. By contrast, the 
court noted, “employees may be protected” when reporting 
an employer’s wrongdoing “by means of civil or criminal 
776	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
channels recognized by law,” such as the statute prohibit-
ing employers from discriminating against employees for 
reporting criminal activity, ORS 659A.230(1). Id. at 640.
	
In the instant case, plaintiff asserted a wrongful 
discharge claim based on allegations that the Council had 
discharged her for whistleblowing. She also contended that 
whistleblowing is a protected activity under the tort, as evi-
denced by the legislature’s enactment of ORS 659A.203(1) 
to protect government employees who disclose governmental 
violations of law. On review, the parties present the issue 
whether whistleblowing by a public employee, that is, report-
ing governmental violations of law as described in that stat-
ute, gives rise to a tort claim for wrongful discharge if the 
public employer fires the employee because of that activ-
ity. That is an issue of first impression for this court. And, 
while plaintiff assumes that the issue must be decided by 
the court as a question of law, defendant requests that this 
court expressly hold that the issue is a question of law.
	
As an initial matter, we hold that whether the 
employee has identified an important public policy that lies 
at the core of the employee’s claimed protected activity and 
that would be frustrated by permitting the employer to dis-
charge the employee without consequence is a legal issue 
decided by a court. In Babick, in which the plaintiffs con-
tended that they had performed a public duty by making 
citizen arrests, this court explained that “it is necessary to 
‘find’ a public duty, not create one, using ‘constitutional and 
statutory provisions, or the case law of this or other juris-
dictions.’ 
” Babick, 333 Or at 409 (quoting Babick v. Oregon 
Arena Corp., 160 Or App 140, 144, 980 P2d 1147 (1999), aff’d 
in part, rev’d in part, Babick, 333 Or 401 (2002)). Calling as 
it does for an evaluation of sources of law to discern whether 
the plaintiff’s discharge from employment implicates an 
important public policy, that test strongly implies that 
courts must decide the matter as a legal question. Earlier 
cases from this court confirm that conclusion. See, e.g., Nees, 
272 Or at 219 (examining Oregon constitutional provisions 
and statutes and announcing that “actions by the people, 
the legislature, and the courts clearly indicate that the jury 
system and jury duty are regarded as high on the scale 
of American institutions and citizen obligations”); accord 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
777
Delaney, 297 Or at 17 (concluding that, considering the com-
mon law and provisions of the Oregon Constitution, “a mem-
ber of society has an obligation not to defame others”).
	
In this case, plaintiff has identified ORS 659A.203(1) 
as a statutory source of law to support her contention that 
Oregon has an important public policy that protects a gov-
ernment employee who blows the whistle on her employer 
and that she should be able to recover economic and non-
economic damages from defendant through a common-law 
wrongful discharge claim. In turn, defendant asserts vari-
ous arguments related to whether plaintiff proved the ele-
ments of whistleblowing, but defendant does not claim that 
plaintiff failed to identify an important public policy that is 
supported by sources of law. For example, defendant asserts 
that plaintiff misdirected her report of the Council’s viola-
tions to Jordan, who purportedly had no authority to take 
action as the head of DAS, and that plaintiff could not have 
had a reasonable belief that the Council had violated any 
law, because the circumstances merely involved an ongoing 
dispute concerning the scope of plaintiff’s authority rather 
than the Council’s violations of laws. Yet the proper focus of 
the legal question at hand is not whether plaintiff proved 
whistleblowing. Rather, the question is whether plaintiff 
identified an important public policy animating her activ-
ity that would be thwarted by permitting defendant to dis-
charge her without potential liability in tort.
	
As we affirmed in Babick, that determination rests 
first on sources of law evidencing the asserted public policy. 
The court also cautioned in Lamson that “the sources of law 
that express the asserted ‘public policy’ must in some sense 
speak directly” to the acts taken by the plaintiff that led to 
the discharge from employment. 346 Or at 638 (emphasis 
in original). Applying that analytical framework, we agree 
with plaintiff that she relied on an important public policy 
that supports a wrongful discharge claim.
	
Under ORS 659A.203(1), a public employer may not
“(b)  Prohibit any employee from disclosing, or take or 
threaten to take disciplinary action against an employee 
for the disclosure of any information that the employee rea-
sonably believes is evidence of:
778	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
	
“(A)  A violation of any federal or state law, rule or reg-
ulation by the state, agency or political subdivision.”
The statute thus explicitly protects the employment of pub-
lic employees who report an employer’s “violation of any * 
* 
* 
law.” Id. The legislature’s enactment of such a broad pro-
tective statute for public employees demonstrates the exis-
tence of a significant public policy aimed at protecting pub-
lic employees who come forward with reports of wrongdoing 
by their government employers, and the statute “speak[s] 
directly” to the protected nature of an employee’s report of 
her employer’s wrongdoing.
	
By contrast, our decision in Babick is instructive 
in describing an instance in which sources of law failed to 
speak directly to the employee’s allegedly protected acts. In 
the decision that this court overturned in Babick, the Court 
of Appeals had relied on various statutes, which related to 
general public safety and authorized citizen arrests, to con-
clude that those statutes established an important public 
policy favoring a safe community and law enforcement by 
citizens when police officers are not present. Babick, 160 Or 
App at 144-46. In reversing the Court of Appeals, this court 
observed that the statutes were “far too general” to support 
a wrongful discharge claim for fulfilling an important pub-
lic duty. Babick, 333 Or at 409. But the same critique can-
not be made regarding the statute on which plaintiff relies 
here. An employee who reports a public employer’s violations 
of law enjoys protection under ORS 659A.203(1) from dis-
charge or other disciplinary action. Thus, for purposes of 
the analysis of plaintiff’s wrongful discharge claim, we hold 
that Oregon has an important public policy protecting a gov-
ernment employee who blows the whistle on her employer.
	
We note, however, that common law wrongful dis-
charge is an interstitial tort: The tort may only be invoked 
when another claim does not provide a plaintiff with an ade-
quate remedy. Walsh, 278 Or at 352-53 (rejecting wrongful 
discharge claim because existing remedies under federal 
law were “adequate to protect both the interests of soci-
ety * 
* 
* and the interests of employees”); Delaney, 297 Or 
at 10, 16 (recognizing that, in some cases, employees could 
not recover in tort because “an adequate existing remedy 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
779
protects the interests of society so that an additional remedy 
of wrongful discharge will not be accorded”). As the Court of 
Appeals previously has stated, the wrongful discharge tort 
is “designed to fill a gap where a discharge in violation of 
public policy would otherwise not be adequately remedied.” 
Dunwoody v. Handskill Corp., 185 Or App 605, 613, 60 P3d 
1135 (2003). Although plaintiff in this case brought both a 
statutory whistleblowing claim and a common law wrongful 
discharge claim, a plaintiff could not do so today under the 
current statute.4
	
Although, in this case, the Court of Appeals cor-
rectly concluded that whistleblowing in the public employ-
ment context can give rise to a wrongful discharge claim, 
Walker, 299 Or App at 447, it incorrectly suggested that the 
existence of that important public policy rests on a court’s 
legal determination of the plaintiff’s reasonable belief that 
her employer violated the law in the whistleblowing context. 
Whether a plaintiff has asserted an important public policy 
by virtue of whistleblowing protected by ORS 659A.203(1) 
is a legal question that does not require a court to conduct 
a conjoined analysis of the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s 
belief that her employer violated the law.
	
Although the question of whether a wrongful dis-
charge claim implicates an important public policy is a ques-
tion of law for the court, that does not mean that resolution 
of the entire claim is for the court. Whether an employee had 
an objectively reasonable belief that her employer violated 
the law is a separate element of a common-law wrongful dis-
charge claim based on whistleblowing protected under ORS 
659A.203(1). And, whether a plaintiff can establish that 
	
4  When this case was litigated in 2015, the statutory claim was not as pro-
tective as the common-law wrongful discharge claim. Under the 2015 version 
of ORS 659A.203, the statute provided only equitable remedies. Given the gap 
in the available remedies, plaintiff was able to assert both claims. In 2016, the 
legislature amended ORS 659A.203 to provide additional remedies, including 
compensatory damages. See Or Laws 2016, ch 73, § 4 (amending ORS 659A.203 
(2015); ORS 659A.203(3) (2019) (allowing for any remedy under ORS 659A.199); 
ORS 659A.199 (allowing for remedies provided by ORS chapter 659A); ORS 
659A.885(3)(a) (allowing the trial court to award compensatory damages). A 
plaintiff today, therefore, would be afforded a complete remedy under the current 
statute and could no longer bring both a statutory whistleblowing claim under 
ORS 659A.203 and a common-law wrongful discharge claim.
780	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
separate element is, in most cases, an issue reserved for the 
trier of fact.
B.  Plaintiff’s Reasonable Belief as to Violation of Law
	
In light of plaintiff’s theory that she was wrong-
fully discharged for statutorily protected whistleblowing, 
plaintiff proceeded at trial to prove the elements of statu-
tory whistleblowing. The disputed element in this case con-
cerned whether plaintiff had proved that her belief that her 
employer had violated the law was reasonable. In evaluating 
reasonableness, the Court of Appeals held that “[w]hether 
plaintiff had an objectively reasonable belief is a question 
of law for the court.” Walker, 299 Or App at 447 (internal 
quotations omitted). We disagree.
	
In holding that a plaintiff’s reasonable belief is 
a question of law in a whistleblowing claim, the Court of 
Appeals relied on one of its own cases, Miller v. Columbia 
County, 282 Or App 348, 385 P3d 1214 (2016), rev den, 361 
Or 238 (2017). Miller involved a civil action for false arrest 
and malicious prosecution in an underlying criminal case. 
 
Id. at 349. The Court of Appeals in that case reviewed 
whether a police officer had a reasonable belief that a plain-
tiff had committed a crime, and whether that officer had 
probable cause to make an arrest, as a question of law. 
 
Id. at 355-56, 358. The issue in Miller concerned the reason-
ableness of a police officer’s beliefs in the context of police 
actions (a stop and an arrest), as to which courts apply legal 
doctrines that flow from basic constitutional protections 
against unreasonable government seizures. Miller did not 
involve any issue relating to wrongful discharge, whistle-
blowing, or employment law generally. We are unpersuaded 
by the Court of Appeals’ reliance on Miller to support its con-
clusion that the same legal-error standard of review at issue 
there is warranted to measure an employee’s belief that her 
employer violated the law before she reported the violation.
	
Rather, we are persuaded that the issue is a question 
of fact that can generally be left to jurors, a conclusion that 
the Court of Appeals had already reached before it decided 
Walker. In Hall v. State of Oregon, 274 Or App 445, 366 P3d 345 
(2015), the trial court granted the employer’s motion for sum-
mary judgment on the plaintiff’s statutory public employee 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
781
whistleblower and wrongful discharge claims. The Court of 
Appeals reversed on appeal, concluding that the plaintiff had 
“presented evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact 
that he acted with subjective, good faith” and “that he had an 
objectively reasonable belief for purposes of ORS 659A.203.” 
Id. at 454. The court explained that the plaintiff’s evidence 
“could support a finding” of his reasonable belief. Id. And like 
defendant in this case, the state employer in Hall argued that, 
“because the report was not objectively reasonable, plaintiff 
could have no wrongful discharge claim.” Id. at 455. But the 
Court of Appeals rejected that argument because the plain-
tiff “presented evidence sufficient to create a question of fact 
as to the objective reasonableness of his report.” Id.; accord 
Love v. Polk County Fire District, 209 Or App 474, 495, 149 
P3d 199 (2006) (holding that a genuine issue of material fact 
existed regarding whether the plaintiffs’ belief that the mar-
shal was unlawfully backdating documents in a cover-up was 
objectively reasonable).
	
The reasonableness of an employee’s belief about her 
employer’s violation of law is similar to the kind of factual 
determination about reasonableness that jurors routinely 
make in civil claims alleging negligence. In the context 
of negligence, this court has held that whether a tortfea-
sor acted reasonably under the duty element is a question 
of fact. Fazzolari v. Portland School Dist. No. 1J, 303 Or 1, 
734 P2d 1326 (1987). In Fazzolari, a student was sexually 
assaulted on school grounds and alleged that the school dis-
trict failed to protect her after similar attacks had occurred 
in the area weeks before the assault. Id. at 3. The court held 
that whether the school district acted reasonably under 
its duty to protect the student from reasonably foreseeable 
harm was a question of fact for the jury. Id. at 19. In hold-
ing that the determination of reasonableness is a question 
of fact, the court relied on Stewart v. Jefferson Plywood Co. 
to reiterate that “[a]s far as ‘negligence’ rests on a standard 
of reasonable conduct, the issue ordinarily can be left to the 
jury * 
* 
*.” Id. at 12 (quoting 255 Or 603, 608, 469 P2d 783 
(1970).
	
The question of the reasonableness of a plaintiff’s 
belief also arises in other types of employment-related 
claims, and the question generally is one of fact for the 
782	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
jury. For example, the reasonableness of a plaintiff’s belief 
or perception is an element in employment discrimination 
cases brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 
that involve hostile work environments. The United States 
Supreme Court has stated that a plaintiff may establish 
a hostile work environment “[s]o long as the environment 
would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile 
or abusive * 
* 
*.” Harris v. Forklift Systems Inc., 510 US 17, 
22, 114 S Ct 367, 126 L Ed 2d 295 (1993); see also Montell v. 
Diversified Clinical Services, Inc., 757 F3d 497, 505 (6th Cir 
2014) (reversing summary judgment on state law retalia-
tion claim because evidence was sufficient to show that the 
plaintiff could have had an objectively reasonable belief that 
her supervisor unlawfully sexually harassed her before she 
reported it, and her belief was a question of credibility for a 
jury).
	
And specifically with respect to whistleblower pro-
tection for employees, other jurisdictions also conclude that 
the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s belief that the employer 
was violating the law is a question of fact. In an article on 
whistleblowing in private employment, one author has noted 
that the issues of
“[w]hether an employee made a report both in good faith 
and with a reasonable belief within the meaning of a 
whistleblower statute have been construed as questions of 
fact.
	
“* 
* 
* 
* 
*
	
“If a statute protects an employee for reporting sus-
pected violations, the reasonableness of the employee’s sus-
picions is a question of fact, typically for the jury to resolve.”
Frank J. Cavico, Private Sector Whistleblowing and the 
Employment-at-Will Doctrine: A Comparative Legal, Ethi-
cal, and Pragmatic Analysis, 45 S Tex L Rev 543, 615-16 
(2004) (internal references omitted).
	
Similarly, other states with whistleblower protec-
tions for public employees also reserve the issue of the reason-
ableness of the plaintiff’s belief for the trier of fact. The New 
Jersey Supreme Court has held that, in a statutory whistle-
blowing action, whether an employee had a reasonable belief 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
783
that her employer violated the law is a question of fact for 
the jury. Dzwonar v. McDevitt, 177 NJ 451, 464, 828 A2d 893 
(2003). In Dzwonar, the plaintiff contended that the employ-
er’s executive board had wrongfully discharged her because 
of her complaints that the board had violated federal law 
and its own bylaws. Id. at 456, 828 A2d at 896. On review, 
the New Jersey Supreme Court addressed the elements of a 
whistleblowing claim under the applicable New Jersey stat-
ute.5 Id. at 462, 828 A2d at 900. The court held that, when 
a plaintiff brings a whistleblowing claim pursuant to the 
statute, it is a question of law for the trial court to determine 
whether a source of authority or an expression of public pol-
icy would be thwarted if the alleged violation were true. 
 
Id. at 463, 828 A2d at 901. Once the court makes that legal 
determination, the jury usually determines whether the 
employee’s belief concerning the alleged violation of law was 
reasonable. Id. at 464, 828 A2d at 902. As the New Jersey 
Supreme Court explained, a plaintiff
“must set forth facts that would support an objectively rea-
sonable belief that a violation has occurred. In other words, 
when a defendant requests that the trial court determine 
as a matter of law that a plaintiff’s belief was not objec-
tively reasonable, the trial court must make a threshold 
determination that there is a substantial nexus between 
the complained-of conduct and a law or public policy identi-
fied by the court or the plaintiff. If the trial court so finds, 
the jury then must determine whether the plaintiff actually 
held such a belief and, if so, whether that belief was objec-
tively reasonable.”
Id. at 464, 828 A2d at 901-02 (emphasis added).
	
In sum, unless the trial court concludes that the 
record is such that no reasonable juror could find for the 
	
5  New Jersey’s whistleblowing statute, the Conscientious Employment 
Protection Act (CEPA), NJ Stat Ann § 34:19-3, closely resembles Oregon’s public 
employee whistleblowing statute. CEPA provides that an employer may not retal-
iate against an employee who:
	
“a.  Discloses, or threatens to disclose to a supervisor or to a public body 
an activity, policy, or practice of the employer * 
* 
* that the employee reason-
ably believes:
	
“(1)  is in violation of a law, or a rule or regulation promulgated pursuant 
to law * 
* 
*.”
NJ Stat Ann § 34:19-3.
784	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
plaintiff on the issue, whether the employee held a reason-
able belief that the employer violated the law is an issue of 
fact for the jury. With that legal framework established, we 
turn to the second issue that the parties raise: whether the 
jury could find that plaintiff had a reasonable belief that the 
Council violated the law when she sent her memorandum to 
Jordan.
	
The jury was instructed that, for the plaintiff to 
recover for wrongful discharge, it had to find that (1) she 
was discharged, (2) that a substantial factor in the deci-
sion to discharge her was that she had “engaged in whistle-
blowing,” and (3) that she suffered damages. The jury also 
was instructed that, to prove that she had engaged in 
whistleblowing, plaintiff was required to prove the reason-
ableness of her belief; specifically, she had to show that she 
“disclos[ed] information that the plaintiff reasonably believed 
was evidence that her [public] employer * 
* 
* [v]iolat[ed] * 
* 
* 
a state or federal law, rule, or regulation.” (Emphasis added.) 
The trial court rejected defendant’s motions for directed ver-
dict, presented those issues for the jury to resolve, and the 
jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff.
	
Plaintiff asserts, and we agree, that the Court of 
Appeals did not employ the correct standard of review when 
evaluating the reasonable-belief element of her claim. The 
element was a question of fact, not a question of law for the 
court. When a trial court has denied a defendant’s motion for 
directed verdict, and the jury has issued a verdict in favor of 
the plaintiff, a reviewing court cannot overturn the verdict 
“unless [it] can affirmatively say that there is no evidence 
from which the jury could have found the facts necessary to 
establish the elements of plaintiff’s cause of action.” Brown 
v. J. C. Penney Co., 297 Or 695, 705, 688 P2d 811 (1984) 
(emphasis added). The reviewing court does not weigh the 
evidence; it considers the evidence, including inferences, in 
the light most favorable to plaintiff. Id.
	
Viewing the record in the light most favorable to 
plaintiff for any evidence to support the jury’s finding, we 
conclude that the evidence permitted the jury to find that 
plaintiff had a reasonable belief that the Council violated 
the law, either through violating her statutory authority as 
Cite as 367 Or 761 (2021)	
785
CEO under ORS 377.835(7) or violating the public meetings 
law, or both.
	
Plaintiff produced evidence to support the jury’s 
finding that she had a reasonable belief as to the Council’s 
violation of law. A factfinder could have found that the 
Council violated plaintiff’s authority as CEO under ORS 
377.835(7) based on evidence that (1) plaintiff was hired 
shortly after a Secretary of State audit noted that the 
agency needed greater transparency and accountability; 
(2) plaintiff was hired to implement the Secretary of State’s 
audit recommendations, which noted that the agency needed 
greater transparency and accountability, and recommended 
that the agency implement an employee classification and 
salary structure; (3) plaintiff had the statutory authority 
to set staff salaries; (4) the Council rejected plaintiff’s pro-
posed salary structure that modeled the DAS system salary 
range; (5) plaintiff testified that she did not believe that the 
new salary implementation impacted the budget and, thus, 
she did not believe that Council approval was necessary 
before implementation; and (6) plaintiff’s memorandum to 
Jordan reported that plaintiff believed that the Council was 
exceeding its statutory authority and effectively performing 
plaintiff’s statutory duties that are reserved for the CEO, a 
professional executive administrator.
	
Additionally, a factfinder could have found that 
plaintiff reasonably believed that the Council had violated 
the public meetings law based on the evidence that (1) the 
Council chair requested the March 2014 meeting after find-
ing out that plaintiff implemented a new salary structure; 
(2) an attorney with the Department of Justice told plain-
tiff’s executive assistant that the March 2014 meeting was 
supposed to be noticed as a public meeting; (3) the Council 
chair instructed plaintiff’s executive assistant not to notice 
the March 2014 meeting; (4) plaintiff served “at the pleasure 
of the [C]ouncil” under ORS 377.835(7); (5) plaintiff testified 
that she obeyed the Council chair’s instruction about not 
providing public notice of the March 2014 meeting because 
she felt that she was at risk for termination at that meeting 
and did not want to further upset the Council beforehand; 
(6) plaintiff conferred with a Department of Justice lawyer 
before the March 2014 meeting because she feared that 
786	
Walker v. Oregon Travel Information Council
she would be terminated at that meeting; and (7) plaintiff 
reported the violation to Jordan, the head of DAS, because 
DAS had the authority to ensure ongoing compliance in the 
future.
	
We are unpersuaded by defendant’s argument that 
plaintiff could not have had a reasonable belief that the 
Council violated the law, either under ORS 377.835(7) or 
under the public meetings law. Defendant asserts that if any 
violation of law did occur—namely, under the public meet-
ings law—it only occurred because plaintiff had violated the 
law herself by not fulfilling her responsibilities as director. 
Additionally, defendant contends that the Council acted 
within its statutory authority to set budgets and limit the 
CEO’s actions. Although those arguments certainly consti-
tuted defendant’s case and could have permitted the jury to 
render a defense verdict, the jury rejected the defense the-
ory of the case and accepted plaintiff’s theory instead. The 
trial court did not err by denying defendant’s motions for 
directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict 
and entering a judgment in plaintiff’s favor on her wrongful 
discharge claim. The Court of Appeals erred in reversing on 
that claim.
	
Our disposition is affected by plaintiff’s challenge 
to the trial court’s dismissal of her statutory whistleblower 
claim. Before the Court of Appeals, plaintiff argued that the 
trial court was obligated to give credit to the jury’s findings 
on the wrongful discharge claim in her favor when the trial 
court considered her statutory claim, for which only equita-
ble relief was provided. The Court of Appeals rejected that 
assignment of error because it reversed the wrongful dis-
charge claim, concluding that the jury should not have con-
sidered the wrongful discharge claim. We therefore remand 
the case to the Court of Appeals to decide that assignment 
of error anew.
	
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, 
and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further 
proceedings.