Opinion ID: 3062949
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Florida Whistleblower Act Claim

Text: Under the Florida Whistleblower Act, “an employer may not take any retaliatory personnel action against an employee because the employee has . . . . 4 On appeal, Bush does not challenge the ruling on his tortious interference claim. 5 On appeal, Bush argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment three days before his time to respond to Raytheon’s motion to strike had expired under the local rules. Bush contends that he would have submitted additional evidence in opposition to the motion to strike. Bush appends this additional evidence, most of which is transcripts from a nine-day presuit arbitration between Bush and Raytheon in 2007, to a motion to supplement the record on appeal. Bush had these documents before he filed his response to Raytheon’s motion for summary judgment and should have submitted them then if they were relevant to the summary judgment issues. Accordingly, Bush’s motion to supplement the record on appeal is DENIED. Raytheon’s motion to strike portions of Bush’s reply brief is also DENIED. Raytheon’s request to seal from public disclosure the document entitled “FRP1 Synthesizer Redesign,” which was attached to Bush’s motion to supplement the record on appeal, is DENIED. 6 [o]bjected to, or refused to participate in, any activity, policy, or practice of the employer which is in violation of a law, rule, or regulation.” Fla. Stat. § 448.102(3). The legislative purpose of the Act is to “protect private employees who report or refuse to assist employers who violate laws enacted to protect the public.” Jenkins v. Golf Channel, 714 So. 2d 558, 563 (Fla. 5th Dist. Ct. App. 1998). A “‘[l]aw, rule, or regulation’ includes any statute or ordinance or any rule or regulation adopted pursuant to any federal, state, or local statute or ordinance applicable to the employer and pertaining to the business.” Fla. Stat. § 448.101(4). The Act does not apply to violations of “public policy” because “the legislature did not intend to create a cause of action for what essentially amounts to an internal and personal dispute between [a plaintiff and his] employers. By the definition provided in section 448.101(4), the phrase ‘law, rule or regulation’ refers to enactments of a legislative or administrative forum.” Forrester v. John H. Phipps, Inc., 643 So. 2d 1109, 1111-12 (Fla. 1st Dist. Ct. App. 1994); see also New World Commc’ns of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231, 1234 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2003) (concluding that an uncodified agency policy is not a rule for purposes of Florida’s Whistleblower Act); Tyson v. Viacom, Inc., 760 So. 2d 276, 277 (Fla. 4th Dist. Ct. App. 2000) (concluding that a federal court injunction is not a law, 7 rule or regulation under Florida’s Whistleblower Act).6 Here, Bush failed to present sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that he objected to a violation of a “law, rule, or regulation,” as that phrase is defined by Florida law. Bush said to the Raytheon supervisors that the engineers needed to “look at [their] funding statement; if there’s no obsolete parts, there may be a problem.” TI30B is a funding statement delineating the terms of engineering services under a government contract. It is not a law, rule or regulation enacted by a legislative or administrative body. Bush argues that when he objected to Raytheon violating the terms of TI30B he insinuated that Raytheon was violating the False Claims Act (“FCA”). Specifically, Bush contends that all of the Raytheon supervisors had received ethics training on contract compliance, were aware of the FCA, and “knew or should have known the redesign was illegal.” Bush did not advance this argument in the district court. In any event, there is no evidence in the record that Bush explicitly objected to the redesign on FCA grounds. Indeed, Bush admitted that his 6 Although we apply Florida substantive law to retaliation claims under the Florida Whistleblower Act, we use the familiar McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework applied in Title VII retaliation claims to evaluate whether summary judgment was appropriate. See Sierminski v. Transouth Fin. Corp., 216 F.3d 945, 950 (11th Cir. 2000). Under this framework, when the plaintiff presents only circumstantial evidence of a retaliatory motive, the plaintiff bears the burden to present evidence of each element of his prima facie case. Id. If the plaintiff does so, the burden shifts to the employer to proffer a non-retaliatory reason for the adverse action, after which the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to show that the reason is pretext for retaliatory conduct. Id. 8 objection to the violation of TI30B was “subtle.” Because TI30B is not a law, rule, or regulation within the meaning of the Florida Whistleblower Act, Bush has failed to establish his prima facie case. Thus, we do not address Bush’s arguments about whether he presented evidence as to the other elements of a Florida Whistleblower Act claim or whether Bush presented evidence that Raytheon’s legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for its actions were pretext.