Opinion ID: 28136
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Discloses or threatens to

Text: disclose a workplace act or practice that is in violation of state law. .... (3) Objects to or refuses to participate in an employment act or practice that is in violation of law. (Emphasis added.) The district court awarded Cargill summary judgment because Kimble had produced no evidence of a violation of state law. (His claim under this section concerns alleged violations of federal law: Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations.) Puig v. Greater New Orleans Expressway Comm’n, 772 So. 2d 842 (La. App. 5 Cir. 2000), writ denied, 786 So. 2d 731 (La. 2001), 3 notes: “[Section] 23:967 ... specifies that the employer must have committed a ‘violation of state law’ for an employee to be protected from reprisal”. Id. at 845 (second emphasis added); see also Nolan v. Jefferson Parish Hosp. Service Dist. No. 2, 790 So. 2d 725, 732 (La. App. 5 Cir. 2001) (quoting Puig). Kimble asserts: this language is dicta; and, while subsection (A)(1) requires that the violation be of state law, subsection (A)(3) requires only a “violation of law”. The § 23:967 claim, however, was apparently brought pursuant to subsection (A)(1),the disclosure provision, not (A)(3): Plaintiff was wrongfully discharged by Defendant for reporting to supervisors and to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration concerning an unsafe working condition in regard to a crane which was in need of repair. This termination is in violation of LA R.S. 23:967 forbidding retaliation against an employee disclosing an act or practice of the employer which is, or is reasonably believed to be, in violation of state law. (Emphasis added.) In any event, Kimble presents no case law in support of his interpretation of the statute. In sum, there is no basis for our questioning the only interpretation offered by a Louisiana court. When making ... an Erie guess, we are bound by an intermediate state appellate court decision unless convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the state would decide otherwise. However, we will not expand state law beyond its presently existing boundaries. 4 Barfield v. Madison County, Miss., 212 F.3d 269, 272 (5th Cir. 2000) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).