Opinion ID: 728743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act Claim

Text: 8 The Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act provides in relevant part that: 9 An employer shall not discharge, threaten, or otherwise discriminate against an employee regarding the employee's compensation, terms, location, or privileges of employment 10 (1) because the employee [ ... ] reports or is about to report to a public body, verbally or in writing, a violation which the employee knows or reasonably believes has occurred or is about to occur, of a law or regulation, or rule promulgated under the law of this state, a political subdivision of this state, or the United States, unless the employee knows or has reason to know that the report is false.... 6 11 Accordingly, an employee must demonstrate that there was a causal connection between the report and the termination. 12 The statute does not explicitly define what constitutes a report or reporting a suspected or known violation. However, it does define public body as follows: 13 (4) Public body means all of the following:[ ... ] 14 (iii) A county, city, town, or regional governing body, a council, school district, or a board, department, commission, agency, or any member or employee thereof. 7 15 The district court concluded that this statute is inapplicable in the circumstances of this case because Marques' statements could not be construed as reports to a public body. The district court reasoned that the statute contemplates a situation in which an employee reports or threatens to report a violation of a law to a third party with jurisdiction over the violation. For the district court, Marques' statements were merely explanations for his refusal to return to the boat, rather than reports to an appropriate individual or body of known or suspected violations. 16 Marques argues on appeal that the district court gave an overly narrow interpretation to the statute's provisions. He claims that his statements to Barlow could fall within the statute and that both caselaw (albeit from other jurisdictions) and public policy support his view. The city, on the other hand, contends that the district court properly construed the provision; it maintains that Marques made no statements to Barlow or other supervisors that reasonably could be construed as reports of violations to a public body. 17 Our task is complicated by the lack of guideposts. There is no relevant legislative history indicating the intent of Rhode Island lawmakers concerning the interpretation of these terms. Furthermore, Rhode Island courts have not directly interpreted report or public body under the statute. We do, however, have the statutory language, which must be construed consistently with its purpose. Our review of the language of the statute, together with an examination of similar statutes from other jurisdictions, with an eye to the public policy underlying such whistleblowers' statutes, counsels a broader view of the statute than that adopted by the district court. 18 We begin with principles of statutory construction. Where the terms of a statute are clear, a court must give the words their plain and obvious meaning. See Ellis v. Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, 586 A.2d 1055, 1057 (R.I.1991); O'Connell v. Shalala, 79 F.3d 170, 176 (1st Cir.1996) (courts are bound to give statutes a practical, commonsense reading). Furthermore, a statute may not be construed in a manner that results in absurdities or defeats its underlying purpose. In re Falstaff Brewing Corp., 637 A.2d 1047, 1050 (R.I.1994). As noted, the statute explicitly includes municipal employees in the definition of public body; however, the boundaries of the definition of report are still unclear. Therefore, we turn to Rhode Island's sister states in search of further clarification. 8 19 Similar whistleblowers' statutes are found in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Of these, the Connecticut statute bears the closest resemblance to the Rhode Island statute at hand, although it, too, has not been the focus of relevant caselaw. 9 Generally, these whistleblowers' statutes appear to fall into two broad categories: statutes like Rhode Island's and Connecticut's, which are broadly drafted, and do not explicitly include statements to an employee's supervisor within the rubric of reports to a public body, and more detailed statutes like those of Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. The statutes in this second category are considerably more complex than those of the first type; these explicitly include statements to a supervisor within protected behavior, and indeed, require it as a preliminary reporting step. 10 Clearly, under this type of statute, Marques' statements to Barlow would come under the umbrella of protected actions. Such is not as clearly the case here, where we must deal with a more broadly drafted statute. 20 Marques, confronted with a paucity of Rhode Island authorities on this issue, points to two cases from other jurisdictions dealing with whistleblowers to support his assertion that public policy supports a broad reading of the Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act. Appeal of Bio Energy Corp., 135 N.H. 517, 607 A.2d 606 (1992), concerned an employee who was terminated after bringing to her supervisor's attention a violation of State Department of Labor rules regarding payment of wages. Id. 607 A.2d at 607. The court there found that the New Hampshire statute, which mandates an initial report to a supervisor, applies to employees from the point of this initial report. Id. at 608-09. The court noted the dual purposes of the New Hampshire Act: to encourage employees to come forward and report violations without fear of losing their jobs and to ensure that as many alleged violations as possible are resolved informally within the workplace. Id. at 609. Similar purposes, Marques argues, undergird the Rhode Island statute. The city, however, distinguishes Bio Energy from our case on the grounds that the Rhode Island statute, unlike the New Hampshire one, does not contain specific language including supervisors within the group to whom reports may be made, and that no intent to do so should be inferred. 21 Bechtel Construction Co. v. Labor Sec'y, 50 F.3d 926, 931-32 (11th Cir.1995), concerned an internal complaint made pursuant to the whistleblowers' provisions of the Energy Reorganization Act, rather than to a state whistleblowers' Act. There, the court broadly construed the Act's terms (which prohibited discharging or discriminating against employees who assisted with or participated in proceedings) to encompass the actions of an employee who called violations of procedures for handling radiation-contaminated tools at a nuclear power plant to the attention of his supervisor. Id. at 931-32. 11 Marques argues that public policy counsels a similarly broad reading of the Rhode Island statute. The city, however, maintains that the Energy Reorganization Act's inclusion of the catchall phrase or any other action at the end of the whistleblowers' section in question indicated an intent not present in the Rhode Island statute to extend the protections afforded employees beyond proceedings to include internal complaints. 22 As the whistleblowers' provisions at issue in Bechtel do not mirror those at issue in this case, the comparison of the Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act to the Energy Reorganization Act, while informative, is not dispositive. But, we take from both this case and Bio Energy an important and applicable public policy consideration--that employees should not be discouraged from reporting suspected violations initially to supervisors. We see no significant policy served by extending whistleblower protection only to those who carry a complaint beyond the institutional wall, denying it to the employee who seeks to improve operations from within the organization. The latter course appears to us as more likely to lead to prompt resolution of issues related to suspected violations of laws or regulations. 23 We therefore conclude that a jury permissibly could find the Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act applicable to statements made by an employee to a supervisor concerning known or suspected violations of the law. The terms of the statute specifically define a public body as including [a] ... city ... governing body ... or any ... employee thereof. We do not read this language as covering all municipal employees, such as a co-worker, but as including a superior charged with carrying out the policies and decisions of the city. While the Act does not explicitly address statements to supervisors, as do other states' whistleblowers' statutes, the public policy behind these statutes is surely similar: to encourage the prompt reporting and early, amicable resolution of potentially dangerous workplace situations, and to protect those employees who do report such violations from retaliatory action by employers. 24 We do not, of course, hold that a verdict for Marques is therefore mandated; the jury must decide whether the statements he made fall under a more expansive reading of the statute than that allowed by the district court, and then whether Marques was actually fired as a result of his statements to Barlow. However, we think that the question of whether Marques' statements bring him within the protection of the Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act was one for the jury, and not a proper subject for a directed verdict. 25 Marques raised concerns about the project twice with Gammell on December 22nd: first, when he initially received the assignment to work in the boat on Jones Pond, and then again, at the Pond, where he fruitlessly asked Gammell for a life preserver. Furthermore, Marques testified on direct examination that on December 23rd, after the morning break, he told Barlow he did not want to go back in the boat because he felt sick, that he did not feel conditions in the pond were safe, and that he still had not gotten a life preserver. On cross examination, Marques again testified that he had told Barlow he was not feeling well, that he was not going back in the boat, and that during general conversation on the shore, he and others discussed the safety of the project. Moreover, as we have observed in note 2, supra, the evidence of the depth of the pond was not so clear that Marques' fear was completely unfounded. We do not feel that a reasoned factfinder could have reached but one conclusion on the issue whether these statements constituted a report of a violation covered by the Rhode Island Act and whether Marques' termination was the result of his statements. 26 Accordingly, we vacate the directed verdict on the Rhode Island Whistleblowers' Act claim and remand it for retrial. 27