Opinion ID: 2713093
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the court of appeals’ application of shallal

Text: In this case, despite the marked absence of any motivational element in the language of MCL 15.362, the Court of Appeals majority held that, “as a matter of law, plaintiff could not recover damages under the WPA” given that, in threatening to report the Mayor’s violation of Ordinance 68C, “plaintiff clearly intended to advance his own financial interests” and “did not pursue the matter to inform the public on a matter of 28 Shallal, 455 Mich at 621 (citation and quotation marks omitted; alteration in original). 29 Id. at 622. 30 Id. 13 public concern.”31 In reaching this conclusion, the majority relied on Shallal, which the majority interpreted as holding that, “[i]n order to effectuate the purpose of the WPA . . . , when considering a retaliation claim under the act, a critical inquiry is whether the employee acted in good faith and with ‘a desire to inform the public on matters of public concern . . . .’”32 We disagree with the Court of Appeals’ analysis because it is not supported by the statutory text of MCL 15.362 nor does it accurately characterize this Court’s holding in Shallal. As previously noted, in Shallal, this Court did consider generally a whistleblower’s primary motivation for pursuing a claim under the WPA and, relying on federal caselaw that applied Michigan’s WPA, we concluded that Shallal was precluded from using the WPA to insulate herself from termination “where she knew she was going to be fired before threatening to report her supervisor.”33 Therefore, it was because Shallal’s prior knowledge of her impending termination incited her subsequent threat to report Quinn that this Court held that no reasonable juror could conclude that Shallal’s threat was causally connected to her firing. There is, however, nothing in the plain language of MCL 15.362 that supports a broader requirement that in order to establish a viable claim under the WPA, a plaintiff must proceed under the WPA “out of an altruistic motive of protecting the public.”34 31 Whitman, 293 Mich App at 228-229. 32 Id. at 230, quoting Shallal, 455 Mich at 621 (emphasis added; citation and quotation marks omitted). 33 Shallal, 455 Mich at 622 (emphasis added). 34 Id. 14 Defendants argue that the “altruistic motive” requirement articulated in the Court of Appeals opinion in this case is consistent with the WPA’s underlying purpose of providing protection to the public. Yet the Court of Appeals relied on Shallal to judicially engraft onto MCL 15.362 the requirement that a plaintiff’s motivation for engaging in protected activity be altruistic, i.e., to prevent injury to the public, and not self-serving, i.e., for the plaintiff’s own personal gain. Indeed, the Court of Appeals majority’s opinion is replete with references to Whitman’s self-serving motivations, which, according to the Court of Appeals, rendered his WPA claim nonactionable.35 However, this Court has explained that the WPA meets its objective of protecting the public by protecting the whistleblowing employee and by removing barriers that may interdict employee efforts to report violations or suspected violations of the law. Without employees who are willing to risk adverse employment consequences as a result of whistleblowing activities, the public would remain unaware of large-scale and potentially dangerous abuses.[36] 35 For example, the Court of Appeals stated that Whitman could not recover damages under the WPA because his threat to report the Mayor was “clearly intended to advance his own financial interests” and that “when considering a retaliation claim under the act, a critical inquiry is whether the employee acted in good faith . . . .” Whitman, 293 Mich App at 228-229, 230. The Court of Appeals also stated that Whitman’s claim is not actionable under the WPA because he was decidedly “acting . . . in the thoroughly personal and private interest of securing a monetary benefit in order to maintain his ‘life style,’” Whitman’s “complaint amounted to a private dispute over [his] entitlement to a monetary employment benefit,” “plaintiff acted entirely on his own behalf,” and “nowhere in the voluminous record is there any indication that good faith or the interests of society as a whole played any part in plaintiff’s [threatened] decision to go to the authorities.” Id. at 230-231 (citation and quotiation marks omitted; alteration in original). 36 Dolan, 454 Mich at 378-379. 15 Therefore, as long as a plaintiff demonstrates a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action, the plaintiff’s subjective motivation for engaging in the protected activity in the first instance is not relevant to whether the plaintiff may recover under the act. In sum, and contrary to the Court of Appeals majority’s interpretation, Shallal does not hold that an employee’s motivation is a factor in determining whether the employee was engaged in protected activity. Indeed, it bears repeating that having a specific primary motivation is neither a prerequisite for bringing a WPA claim nor a factor to be considered in determining whether a plaintiff had engaged in protected conduct. Accordingly, the statement in Shallal that “[t]he primary motivation of an employee pursuing a whistleblower claim ‘must be a desire to inform the public on matters of public concern, and not personal vindictiveness,’”37 and Shallal’s suggestion that the employee must act “out of an altruistic motive of protecting the public” are disavowed as dicta.