Court Opinion

ID: 9721132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:49:08.960584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:23.556730
License: Public Domain

‘ OPINION
GILDEA, Justice.
Appellant Brian Eidwell appeals from a Minnesota Court of Appeals’ decision overturning a jury verdict in his favor and granting respondent Sybaritic, Inc., judgment as a matter of law. After Eidwell was terminated from his position as in-house general counsel for Sybaritic, he commenced an action, alleging a violation of the whistleblower statute, Minn.Stat. § 181.932 (2008). Sybaritic counterclaimed, alleging breach of fiduciary duty and conversion. A jury found in favor of Eidwell and awarded him damages in the amount of $197,000, plus fees and costs. The district court denied Sybaritic’s' motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial, and Sybaritic appealed to the court of appeals. The court of appeals reversed, holding that Eidwell did not engage in conduct protected by the whistle-blower statute because he was fulfilling the responsibilities of his position of employment when he reported a suspected violation of the law. Kidwell v. Sybaritic, Inc., 749 N.W.2d 855, 866-67 (Minn.App.2008). Because we conclude that Eidwell did not offer evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that he engaged in protected conduct, we affirm.
Sybaritic is a company that manufactures and sells equipment and spa products to spa and medical-spa industries. Eidwell was hired as in-house general counsel for Sybaritic in July 2004. Eid-well’s position involved a variety of duties, including supervising company litigation, providing contract assistance, and advising on employment law issues. Eidwell explained at trial that as general counsel, he was “responsible for providing advice on any legal affairs of the company.” Eid-well’s employment agreement describes the broad scope of his job: “To assist the President in assuming responsibility and decisions as to all corporate legal matters, and the general legal administration of activities at Sybaritic.”
On Sunday, April 24, 2005, shortly after returning from a business trip to Estonia, Eidwell sent an email to Sybaritic’s management team entitled “A Difficult Duty.” Eidwell began the email by stating: “I write to you all with deep regret, but I cannot fail to write this email without also *222failing to do my duty to the company and to my profession as an attorney. That I ■will not do.” In the email, Kidwell expressed concern about a “pervasive culture of dishonesty” at Sybaritic and then proceeded to set forth specific matters that concerned him. Kidwell mentioned several ongoing concerns he had, including that the company had failed to investigate dishonest salespeople, allowed someone on the staff to engage in the unauthorized practice of medicine, and failed to pay taxes owed in California. Kidwell then stated that while those acts of dishonesty were outside his area of responsibility, he had become aware of activity which he had a responsibility to report.1
Kidwell’s “Difficult Duty” email was primarily concerned with emails Kidwell had come across earlier in 2005. Kidwell characterized these emails as “smoking guns” because he believed the emails weakened or destroyed intellectual property claims Sybaritic had pending against NeoQi, an Estonian company. Kidwell suspected that Sybaritic was obstructing discovery of the potentially damaging emails relevant to the ongoing litigation. In his “Difficult Duty” email, Kidwell said that after discovering the damaging emails, he had raised his concerns with Steve Daffer, Sybaritic’s president. Daffer is also a lawyer and, according to Kidwell, Daffer implausibly claimed the emails were not discoverable. Kidwell reported that Daffer later stated that NeoQi “may have a hard time getting their hands on the damaging emails.”
Shortly after Kidwell discovered the potentially damaging emails, he was scheduled to leave for Estonia to take depositions in the NeoQi case. Before Kidwell left for Estonia, the information technology manager was asked to copy the potentially damaging emails to a disk and to provide copies of the disk to Daffer, Kid-well, and Sybaritic’s outside counsel, T.A. While Kidwell was in Estonia, T.A. informed Kidwell that Sybaritic had contacted T.A. expressing concern that the disk containing the emails had a virus. While T.A. was confident his antivirus software would prevent any problems, Sybaritic insisted on retrieving the disk.
Kidwell’s “Difficult Duty” email, written shortly after he returned from Estonia, said that Sybaritic had retrieved the disk from T.A. and had not replaced it. According to Kidwell’s email, he and T.A. both believed the disk did not contain a virus. Kidwell said he became even more suspicious when his email password suddenly changed while he was in Estonia and when, upon returning home from Estonia, he found his office door locked despite the fact he had never been provided a key to the office.
In his “Difficult Duty” email, Kidwell explained the possible legal implications of Sybaritic’s actions, expressing his opinion that there were false allegations in the pleadings Sybaritic filed in the NeoQi litigation and that Sybaritic had failed to comply with discovery orders. Kidwell also expressed his belief that Sybaritic may face Rule 11 sanctions, or charges for obstruction of a court order or obstruction of justice. Kidwell concluded his “Difficult Duty” email by writing:
It is my firm conviction that Sybaritic intends to continue to engage in tax evasion, the unauthorized practice of *223medicine and obstruction of justice. Accordingly, it is my intention to advise the appropriate authorities of these facts. I do this with no ill-will. To the contrary, I wish that I was not obliged to do so. However, the demand of Sybaritic that I become attorney of record in the [intellectual property action] has made it impossible to ignore the obstruction of justice issue, and compels me to speak out about the tax evasion and unauthorized practice of medicine issues which the company has refused to address. I regret that I see no other course of action available.
At trial, Kidwell testified that he sent the email to Sybaritic management “[bjecause I hoped that we could pull this company back into compliance by enlisting some of the other members of management, and as the person responsible for the legal affairs of the company, that’s what I had to do.”
Kidwell also sent a copy of the email to his father, a retired businessman. Kidwell said that he sent his father a copy of the email because he “had confided in my father the ethical dilemma that I was confronted with and wanted him to know what I had elected to do and be aware of that information should I need to talk to him in the future about any action the company might take.”
Kidwell researched whistleblower law before he sent the email to Sybaritic management. He testified that he did this research before sending the email because he “wanted to know if I confronted the company about these matters, what legal protections I might have.”
On Monday, April 25, 2005 — the morning after Kidwell sent the “Difficult Duty” email — Sybaritic responded. Sybaritic decided to change Kidwell’s supervisor from Steve Daffer to Steve Chelsey, another member of Sybaritic’s management team. Kidwell met with members of the Sybaritic management team that morning, and by the end of the day, a framework had been developed to work toward resolution of the issues .Kidwell raised. Three weeks later, Sybaritic terminated Kidwell’s employment.
Following his termination, Kidwell commenced an action against Sybaritic in Hen-nepin County District Court, claiming that he had been fired in violation of the whis-tleblower statute. Sybaritic responded with counterclaims for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion. ' At trial, Daffer explained that T.A.’s computer disk had been retrieved because of concerns over a computer virus. Sybaritic’s information technology manager testified that when Daffer tried to access the disk containing the emails, Daffer had found hundreds of duplicate emails, and Daffer had expressed concern that any virus that may be. causing that problem would also infect T.A.’s computer. The information technology manager explained that Sybaritic had requested that the disk be returned so that he could clean the disk of viruses, eliminate the duplicate emails, and create a new clean disk.
Sybaritic also presented evidence at trial that, on April 19, 2005, T.A. expressed concern to Kidwell over possible evidence tampering and indicated his plans to write a letter to Daffer, but that Kidwell asked that the letter be routed to him instead. Sybaritic’s information technology manager testified that he had not prevented Kid-well from accessing the potentially damaging emails because they were downloaded on the laptop Kidwell took with him to Estonia. The manager also explained that the changed password was a standard company-wide security measure. Sybaritic also presented testimony that Kidwell’s office door had been locked only because he was out of town for a lengthy period of *224time and that security personnel would have opened the door had Kidwell asked.
According to Chelsey, Sybaritic decided to terminate Kidwell after Sybaritic experienced a series of problems with Kidwell over the three-week period following receipt .of the “Difficult Duty” email. Chel-sey explained that Kidwell reported finishing work which he had not actually finished, failed to fulfill a job duty to pay invoices to a Texas law firm, and then asked to take vacation time the week of May 9, 2005, but failed to complete a requested job task before leaving for vacation. Chelsey explained that the issue of unpaid invoices to the Texas law firm arose again while Kidwell was on vacation. Chelsey testified that he looked through Kidwell’s emails to determine whether the invoices had been paid, and that was when he discovered that Kidwell had sent a copy of the “Difficult Duty” email to his father. Chelsey believed Sybaritic could no longer trust Kidwell as general counsel and testified that, as a result, management decided to terminate his employment.
Kidwell argued that Sybaritic’s proffered reasons for terminating him were pretextual. ■ Kidwell presented evidence that Sybaritic’s expressed reasons for terminating him changed over time. Kidwell testified that on the day of his termination Sybaritic claimed to be firing him because both Kidwell and Daffer were unhappy with the situation. But in an interrogatory response Sybaritic claimed that its decision to fire Kidwell was performance based. Finally, Kidwell claimed that it was not until trial that Sybaritic raised the issue of Kidwell’s breach of his fiduciary duty as a reason for termination.
The jury was charged with deciding Kid-well’s whistleblower claim and Sybaritic’s counterclaims for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion. Sybaritic and Kidwell disagreed as to the appropriate jury instructions for the whistleblower claim. Sybaritic requested the district court give the following instruction:
An employee does not engage in a protected activity if it was the employee’s job to bring to the employer’s attention or the attention of any governmental agency any activities that the employee in good-faith believed were in violation of any federal, state, or local law.
The district court disagreed with Sybaritic and refused to give the requested instruction to the jury. In relevant part, the court’s instructions to the jury read as follows:
The Minnesota Whistleblower Act [“Act”] prohibits an employer from discharging an employee because the employee in good faith reports a violation or suspected violation of any federal or state law to an employer or to any governmental body or ... law enforcement official. To recover under the Act, Brian Kidwell must prove by a greater weight of the evidence that: he engaged in protected activity, he suffered an adverse employment action because he engaged in a protected activity, and there was a casual connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.
“Protected activity” is an employee’s conduct in making a good faith report of an actual or suspected violation of a state or federal law to an employer or to any governmental body or law enforcement official.
An employee engages in a protected activity under the Act if the purpose of the employee’s report to the employer or an outside governmental agency was to “blow the whistle” for the purpose of exposing an illegality, that is, a violation of federal, state, or local law.
*225[[Image here]]
An employee does not engage in protected activity unless he made a report in good faith. To determine whether a report was made in good faith, you must look not only at the content of the report, but also at Mr. Kidwell’s job and purpose in making the report at the time the report was made, not after subsequent events have transpired.
The district court also informed the jury that the court had decided, as a matter of law, that Kidwell had breached his fiduciary duty. The court instructed the jury that:
You must determine the amount, if any, of damages to award Sybaritic. In deciding the amount of damages, you have to decide the amount of money that will fairly and adequately compensate Sybaritic for the harm it suffered as a result of Mr. KidweU’s breach.... One measure of damages when an attorney breaches his fiduciary duty to his client is the attorney may forfeit his right to compensation.
On the whistleblower claim, the jury found that (1) Kidwell had engaged in protected activity, (2) the suspected illegal conduct had been reported in good faith, and (3) the protected activity was a substantial motivating factor in Sybaritic’s decision to terminate Kidwell’s employment. The jury awarded Kidwell compensation for back wages, past emotional distress, and future wages. The jury also found that Kidwell would not have been fired at the time he was unless he had engaged in the protected activity. In regard to Sybaritic’s counterclaims, the jury found Sybaritic had suffered no damages as a result of Kidwell’s breach of fiduciary duty. The jury also found Kidwell had converted Sybaritic’s property and determined the fair market value of those losses to be $2,000.
After the jury verdict, Sybaritic made a motion for judgment as a matter of law, disgorgement of any award in favor of Kidwell, or alternatively a new trial. Among other arguments, Sybaritic asserted that the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that in order to constitute protected activity under .the whistle-blower statute, the employee must not be fulfilling responsibilities for which he was employed. The district court denied Sybaritic’s motion and entered judgment for Kidwell in the amount of $197,000, plus fees and costs.
Sybaritic appealed to the court of appeals. The court of appeals reversed, holding that (a) an in-house attorney is not per se barred from bringing a claim under the whistleblower statute, Minn.Stat. § 181.932, and (b) an émployee does not engage in protected activity under the whistleblower statute when that employee’s report to his employer is in fulfillment of the employee’s job duties. Kidwell v. Sybaritic, Inc., 749 N.W.2d 855, 856-57 (Minn.App.2008). The court of appeals determined that Kidwell’s “Difficult Duty” email concerned matters within the scope of his job duties and therefore was not a protected report under the whistleblower statute. Id. at 866-67. As a result, the court of appeals concluded that Sybaritic is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. at 867.2
Kidwell filed a petition for further review, asking us to decide whether an employee engages in conduct protected by the whistleblower statute when the em*226ployee reports a violation or suspected violation of the law while also fulfilling the employee’s job duties. Sybaritic filed a request for conditional cross-review, raising the issues of (1) whether an in-house attorney is precluded from or limited in claiming protection under the whistleblower statute, (2) whether an attorney who breaches a fiduciary duty is entitled to any unearned compensation following that breach, and (3) whether the good faith jury instruction given by the district court was erroneous. We granted review on all four issues.
I.
The first question we consider involves the scope of statutorily-protected conduct under the whistleblower statute, Minn. Stat. § 181.932. Sybaritic argues that Kidwell cannot recover under the whistle-blower statute as a matter of law because Kidwell served as in-hquse general counsel for Sybaritic and the statute does not protect employees who make reports of illegal or suspected illegal conduct as part .of their job duties. In other words, Sybaritic argues that the whistleblower statute contains a so-called “job duties exception.” The court of appeals agreed with Sybaritic, holding that a report made in fulfillment of an employee’s job duties does not'constitute statutorily-protected conduct. Kidwell, 749 N.W.2d at 866-67. Kidwell argues, however, that the language of the whistleblower statute does not contain a job duties exception, and as a matter of public policy, a job duties exception would virtually eliminate the protections of the whistleblower statute.
A.
The parties’ arguments require that we examine the effect, if any, an employee’s job duties have in determining whether an employee engaged in statutorily-protected conduct under the whistle-blower statute. Statutory interpretation presents a question of law that we review de novo. Hans Hagen Homes v. City of Minnetrista, 728 N.W.2d 536, 539 (Minn.2007). When we interpret a statute, our goal must be to “effectuate the intent of the legislature,” and we construe the statute’s words and phrases according to their “plain and ordinary meaning.” State v. Koenig, 666 N.W.2d 366, 372 (Minn.2003); see also Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (2008).
We begin our analysis with the language of the statute. The whistleblower statute provides that an employer shall not “discharge, discipline, threaten, otherwise discriminate against, or penalize an employee,” because the employee, “in good faith, reports a violation or suspected violation of any federal or state law or rule adopted pursuant to law to an employer or to any governmental body or law enforcement official.” Minn.Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1. The statute defines “employee” as “a person who performs services for hire in Minnesota for an employer.” Minn.Stat. § 181.931, subd. 2 (2008).3 The statute requires only that the employee report in good faith a violation or suspected violation of the law, and the statute contemplates that the report can be made to “an employer.” Minn.Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1(1).
The whistleblower statute does not contain any limiting language that supports the blanket job duties exception the court of appeals crafted. We therefore reject as too broad the court of appeals’ conclusion that, as a matter of law, “an employee does not engage in protected *227conduct under the whistleblower act if the employee makes a report in fulfillment of the duties of his or her job.” Kidwell, 749 N.W.2d at 866.4
Although we hold that'the whistleblower statute does not contain a job duties exception, we do not go so far as to hold that an employee’s job duties are irrelevant in determining whether an employee has engaged in protected conduct. We have explained that the whistleblower statute “protects the conduct of a neutral party ‘who “blows the whistle” for the protection of the general public or, at the least, some third person or persons in addition to the whistleblower.’ ” Obst v. Microtron, Inc., 614 N.W.2d 196, 200 (Minn.2000) (quoting Williams v. St. Paul Ramsey Med. Ctr., Inc., 551 N.W.2d 483, 484 n. 1 (Minn.1996)). The legislature’s purpose in confining protection to “a neutral party” is reflected in the requirement that the report must be made in “good faith.” See Minn.Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1(1).
While the legislature did not define “good faith” in the whistleblower statute, we have said that for a report to satisfy the “good faith” requirement, “the report that is claimed to constitute whistle-blowing” must be “made for the purpose of exposing an illegality and not a vehicle, identified after the fact, to support a belated whistle-blowing claim.” Obst, 614 N.W.2d at 202. In determining good faith, we consider not only the content of the report, but also the employee’s purpose in making the report. Id. The “central question” is whether the report was made “for the purpose of blowing the whistle, i.e. to expose an illegality.” Id. An examination of the employee’s job duties could be helpful in answering this central question.
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, interpreting the federal Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA),5 has provided useful examples illustrating the relevance of the reporting employee’s job duties. See Huffman v. Office of Personnel Mgmt., 263 F.3d 1341, 1352 (Fed.Cir.2001). We have previously relied on federal cases construing the WPA when interpreting our whistleblower statute. See Anderson-Johanningmeier v. Mid-Minn. Women’s Ctr., Inc., 637 N.W.2d 270, 277 (Minn.2002) (citing federal cases interpreting WPA). We relied on the federal cases in Anderson-Johanningmeier when discussing the requirement of “good faith” in our statute. Id. Similarly, in this case, our discussion of Huffman arises in the context of construing the element of “good faith” in our statute. As the court in Huffman recognized, “ ‘the WPA is intended to protect government employees who risk their own personal job security for the advancement of the public good by disclosing abuses by government personnel.’ ” 263 F.3d 1341, 1353 (quoting Willis v. Dep’t of Agric., 141 F.3d 1139, 1144 (Fed.Cir.1998)). This purpose is evidenced through Congress’ requirement that pro*228tected reports are those where the employee discloses conduct that the employee “reasonably believes evidences” a violation of law. 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8)(A) (2006). As we noted in Obst, the purpose behind our statute, as evidenced by the requirement of “good faith,” is to protect disclosures made by neutral parties who report violations of the law for the public good. 614 N.W.2d at 200. We conclude, as we did in Anderson-Johanningmeier, that the similarity in purpose behind the WPA and the Minnesota whistleblower statute of protecting reports made with the public good in mind makes the analysis of Huffman helpful.6 Anderson-Johanningmeier, 637 N.W.2d at 277.
In Huffman, the court recognized that an employee who “has, as part of his normal duties, been assigned the task of investigating and reporting wrongdoing by government employees and, in fact, reports that wrongdoing through normal channels” is not engaging in protected conduct under the WPA. 263 F.3d at 1352. The same is true under our whistleblower statute. An employee cannot be said to have “blown the whistle” when the employee’s report is made because it is the employee’s job to investigate and report wrongdoing.7 When an employee responsible for investigating and reporting illegal behavior makes a report of such behavior, that employee will need something more than the report itself to support the conclusion that the employee is making the report as a “neutral party” who is intending to “blow the whistle.” See Obst, 614 N.W.2d at 200. This is true because when it is the employee’s job to report illegality, there is no basis to infer from the mere fact of a report that the employee’s report was made to “blow the whistle.”
But, as discussed in Huffman, even an employee whose job duties include investigating and reporting wrongdoing could show that a report to her employer is protected conduct depending upon to whom the report is made. 263 F.3d at 1354. Where an employee with responsibility for investigating and reporting wrongdoing submits a report documenting wrongdoing outside normal channels, because the employee believes that the normal chain of command is unresponsive, that employee could be viewed as engaging in protected conduct. Id. We agree that in such a situation under our whistleblower statute, because the report was made outside the employee’s chain of command, a reasonable fact-finder could, depending on the evidence, infer that the employee’s *229purpose was to expose an illegality.8
Finally, the Huffman court noted that if an employee is obligated to make a report of wrongdoing, but the report is made outside the scope of the employee’s normal or assigned job duties, the report could still be protected conduct under the WPA. Id. As an example of that situation, the court cited the federal regulation that requires all government employees to report “waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption to appropriate authorities.” Id. at 1354 n. 6 (citing 5 C.F.R. § 26S5.101(b)(ll)). Employees subject to this regulation could be disciplined if they failed to report the wrongdoing. These employees therefore could be said to be fulfilling job requirements when reporting misconduct. But these reports could be viewed as protected conduct because they are not the employee’s normal or assigned work responsibilities. Id. at 1354. We agree that under our whistleblower statute, a reasonable fact-finder could, depending on the evidence, infer that an employee who makes a report based on an employment-related obligation, but not as part of an assigned job duty, was doing so in order to expose an illegality.
B.
With the general principles discussed above in mind, we consider whether, as Sybaritic argues, the district court erred when it denied Sybaritic’s motion for judgment as a matter of. law. We review the court’s decision d'e novo and apply the same standard the district court uses. Bahr v. Boise Cascade Corp., 766 N.W.2d 910, 919 (Minn.2009). Under that standard, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, which in this case is Kidwell. Id. We ask whether, when the evidence is so construed, “there is [a] legally sufficient evi-dentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find” that Kidwell engaged in protected conduct. Minn. R. Civ. P. 50.01(a). That we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict however does not mean that we are precluded from actually examining the evidence to assess whether there is a sufficient basis for the jury’s finding. See Reedon of Faribault, Inc. v. Fidelity and Guar. Ins. Underwriters, Inc., 418 N.W.2d 488, 491 (Minn.1988) (reversing jury verdict and noting that implicit in the “well established rules circumscribing an appellate court’s review of jury findings ... is the premise that there must exist some evidence to support the verdict”); Rettman v. City of Litchfield, 354 N.W.2d 426, 429 (Minn.1984) (reversing jury verdict because evidence was “practically conclusive against the jury finding” on question of fact). Upon examination of the record, we conclude that the evidence is “practically conclusive against the jury finding” that Kidwell engaged in protected conduct. See id.
As discussed above, an employee’s job duties may inform the question of the em*230ployee’s purpose in making a report. Kid-well testified that, as in-house general counsel he was “responsible for providing advice on any legal affairs of the company.” Kidwell was performing this function when he made the report at issue here— the “Difficult Duty” email. Kidwell’s purpose, as reflected in the email, was to warn his client that it would be subject to “sanction[s]” and “exposed to liability” under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and federal statute if it did not comply with its discovery obligations. In his email, Kid-well states that he is raising the obstruction of justice issue to the management team because of his position as the “attorney of record” in the pending intellectual property litigation. The email then recites facts and sets out legal standards under which the company’s conduct could be considered unlawful. It finally states that Kidwell intends to make a future report to appropriate authorities if the company refuses to comply with its legal obligations. The text of the email thus confirms that Kidwell’s purpose was not to “expose an illegality,” but was to provide legal advice to his client.9 Obst, 614 N.W.2d at 202.
The other evidence Kidwell offered at trial further establishes that he sent the email as part of his normal job duties as in-house counsel. Kidwell testified at trial that he sent the email “[bjecause I hoped we could pull this company back into compliance ... and as the person responsible for the legal affairs of the company, that’s what I had to do.” This testimony confirms that this case falls within the first situation described above in Huffman, where an employee, with a specific assignment for ensuring legal compliance, discovers and reports a potential problem to his client. 263 F.3d at 1352.
Kidwell did not offer any other evidence from which the jury could conclude that his purpose in sending the email was anything other than the performance of his assigned responsibilities as in-house counsel. For example, the record establishes that all of the identified recipients of the “Difficult Duty” email were officials on the management team at Sybaritic with whom Kidwell had previously discussed legal matters. Cf Huffman, 263 F.3d at 1354 (listing as protected conduct a report by “a law enforcement officer who is responsible for investigating crime by government employees who, feeling that the normal chain of command is unresponsive, reports wrongdoing outside normal channels”). The dissent states that Kidwell sent the “Difficulty Duty” email to “most of the Sybaritic management team” and the dissent contends “there was no prior occasion where Kidwell had made a report to the management team as a whole.” Therefore, the dissent contends, the “Difficult Duty” email was not sent in the performance of Kidwell’s job duties. But Kidwell did not so testify at trial.10
During his testimony, Kidwell was not even sure to whom he had sent the email. The text of the email shows to whom it was sent and Kidwell confirmed in his testimony that all of the people to whom he addressed the “Difficult Duty” email, people he described as “management,” were all people with whom he had previ*231ously discussed legal matters. Given that Kidwell addressed the email only to those in the management with whom he discussed other legal matters, no inference can be drawn that his purpose was other than to do his job, or in Kidwell’s words: “to pull this company back into compliance ... and as the person responsible for the legal affairs of the company, that’s what I had to do.”
Kidwell threatened in the email that if his email did not “get the company into compliance, I was stating my intention-clear intentions to make reports to the appropriate authorities.” But Kidwell presented no evidence that he sent the email to law enforcement or to the government. Kidwell did forward a copy of the email to one person outside his client’s chain of command — his father. But Kidwell did not send the email to his father because the normal chain of command would not be effective. See Huffman, 263 F.3d at 1354. Kidwell testified that he forwarded the email to his father because he had discussed “the ethical dilemma” he felt he faced with his father, “and wanted him to know what I had elected to do.” The fact that he copied his father on the email therefore does not support the inference that Kidwell was blowing the whistle on his client.11
In sum, the jury received the “Difficult Duty” email and Kidwell’s testimony about the email. This evidence, which came from the party with the burden of proof and which is uncontradicted, is “practically conclusive” that Kidwell sent the email because he felt it was his job to do so. See Rettman, 354 N.W.2d at 429. Indeed, Kidwell said at trial that the type of advice he gave in the “Difficult Duty” email was “what lawyers do.” We agree. When in-house counsel sends his client written advice in order to “pull” that client “back into compliance,” as Kidwell said he did in this case, the lawyer is not sending a report for the purpose of exposing an illegality and the lawyer is not blowing the whistle.12
Because Kidwell presented no evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that he engaged in protected conduct, we hold that the district court should have granted Sybaritic’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. This decision makes it unnecessary for us to reach the other issues raised in this appeal.
Affirmed.

. The court of appeals concluded that these reports were not protected by the whistle-blower statute because Kidwell had previously reported the allegations to Sybaritic. Kid-well, 749 N.W.2d at 868-69. Kidwell does not challenge that determination here. Accordingly, Sybaritic's motion to strike references to those portions of the email in Kid-well’s brief is denied.

. Because of this disposition, the court of appeals did not resolve Sybaritic’s argument that the district court improperly instructed the jury or the issue of whether Kidwell was required to disgorge some of the damages awarded to him due to his breach of fiduciary duty. Kidwell, 749 N.W.2d at 869-70.

. The definition of "employee” excludes independent contractors. Minn.Stat. § 181.931, subd. 2.

. In reaching this conclusion, the court of appeals applied its previous decisions, as well as decisions from federal courts applying Minnesota law holding that "[t]he whistle-blower statute does not grant protection to an employee whose job duties require him or her to ensure legal compliance.” Share v. Extendicare Health Servs., Inc., 515 F.3d 836, 841 (8th Cir.2008); see also Freeman v. Ace Tel. Ass'n, 404 F.Supp.2d 1127, 1139 (D.Minn.2005), aff'd, 467 F.3d 695 (8th Cir.2006); Grundtner v. Univ. of Minn., 730 N.W.2d 323, 330 (Minn.App.2007); Gee v. Minn. State Colls. and Univs., 700 N.W.2d 548, 555-56 (Minn.App.2005); Michaelson v. Minn. Mining & Mfg. Co., 474 N.W.2d 174, 180 (Minn.App.1991), aff'd mem., 479 N.W.2d 58 (Minn.1992).

. See Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Pub. L. No. 101-12, 103 Stat. 16 (codified at various sections of 5 U.S.C.) (providing statutory protections for federal employees who engage in whistleblowing).

. The dissent questions our reliance on Huffman and notes that at least one jurisdiction has rejected the analysis in Huffman. See Rogers v. City of Fort Worth, 89 S.W.3d 265, 276 (Tex.App.2002). But, as the dissent notes, the relevance an employee's job duties will have on the question of whether the report is protected depends on the statutory scheme in which the whistleblower provision is found. It was precisely because of unique provisions in the Texas statute that the Rogers court did not follow the Huffman analysis. The statute at issue in Rogers did not protect reports made to employers. The statute protects reports made "to an appropriate law enforcement agency.” Rogers, 89 S.W.3d at 274 (citing Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 554.002(a)). The Texas statute therefore does not present the situation at issue in this case, and addressed in Huffman, where, an employee with responsibility for ensuring that his employer complies with the law makes a report to his employer about violations of the law, and contends that that report is protected conduct.

. We do not look to Huffman in order to engraft onto our whistleblower statute "an artificial evidentiary hurdle,” as the dissent argues. Our discussion of the examples from Huffman is intended to provide a non-exhaustive illustration of ways in which an employee’s job duties could inform the question of "good faith” under the whistleblower statute.

. By providing this example we do not conclude as the dissent argues "that only in a very rare case would an employee who is responsible for reporting illegal conduct and who reports such conduct through normal channels, be able to prove that the report was made for the purpose of exposing an illegality.” Indeed, we do not disagree with the dissent that "even when an employee has an obligation to make a report because of his job duties, that report should be protected if, but only if, the employee is able to prove the report was, not merely routine but, instead, was made in good faith with the contemporaneous purpose of ‘blowing the whistle.’ ” Whether an employee makes a report for purposes of exposing an illegality will usually present a question of fact and requires examination on a case-by-case basis. We discuss the recipient of the report merely to provide an example of one way in which an employee whose job requires the reporting of illegal behavior might be able to create a fact question as to her purpose in making her report.

. The dissent contends that our "analytical approach" to the "Difficult Duty” email is “incongruous.” We disagree. We do not suggest that the text of the email is not relevant to the question of good faith. To the contrary, the text of the email establishes that Kidwell sent it not to "blow the whistle,” but to carry out his job duties.

. The dissent's speculation that Kidwell's purpose must have been to "blow the whistle,” because Sybaritic had outside counsel likewise finds no actual evidentiary support in the record.

. Likewise, the fact that Kidwell researched whistleblower law does not support an inference that his purpose in sending the email was to expose an illegality, as the dissent contends. Kidwell researched whistleblower law to determine "what legal protections” he might have if he sent the email. But the whistleblower statute was designed to protect those who make reports " 'for the protection of the general public or, at the least, some third person or persons in addition to the whistleblower.' " Ohst, 614 N.W.2d at 200 (quoting Williams v. St. Paul Ramsey Med. Ctr., Inc., 551 N.W.2d 483, 484 n. 1 (Minn.1996)). Thus, the fact that Kidwell was thinking about protecting his own interests does not support the conclusion that he sent the email to expose an illegality.

. Kidwell argues that grounding a result in this case on the fact that he was performing the functions of a lawyer has the effect of adding an attorney exception to the whistle-blower statute. We agree with Kidwell that the legislature did not write an exception in the statute for lawyers. But the legislature did require that reports, in order to be protected, be made for the purpose of exposing an illegality. See Obst, 614 N.W.2d at 202. Kidwell did not offer any evidence to support his claim that he made such a report.