KY Appeals Court Upholds Whistleblower Verdict Against US Bancorp

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a verdict for Michael Rhinehimer who was fired for being a whistleblower. The Court affirmed that Rhinehimer was protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. 

 Plaintiff filed his complaint in the instant action in 2011, alleging a single count of retaliation in violation of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. The case was tried to a jury over five days in 2013. At trial, Plaintiff presented evidence that he was disciplined and fired in retaliation for an email he sent alerting one of his superiors to unsuitable trades made by a co-worker, Patrick Harrigan, to the detriment of Plaintiff’s elderly client, Norbert Purcell. The trades, which are undisputed, occurred while Plaintiff was on disability leave. Plaintiff learned of the trades from his personal assistant shortly after they were made. He called his immediate supervisor twice to express concern about the trades, and finally wrote an email to his supervising principal, criticizing the trades for “destroy[ing]” Purcell’s estate plan and asserting that the trades should never have been placed or approved. Upon returning, Plaintiff was specifically reprimanded for his email. His superiors also threatened his job, placed him on an aggressive “performance improvement plan,” and fired him when he ultimately failed to meet the plan goals.

The jury returned a verdict for Plaintiff and awarded damages for economic loss and emotional damages. Via special verdict form, the jury specifically found (1)  that Plaintiff “proved by a preponderance of the evidence that, at the time of the complaint, he had an objectively reasonable belief that Mr. Harrigan had committed unsuitability fraud;” (2) that Plaintiff “further proved, by a preponderance of the evidence, that [Plaintiff’s] email was a contributing factor in his termination;” and (3) that Defendant did not prove “by clear and convincing evidence that it would have discharged [Plaintiff] even if he had not sent the email.” (R. 114, Special Verdict Form, PGID 3850-51.)

The information that was available to Plaintiff was more than adequate to allow him reasonably to believe that the trades were the result of conduct constituting unsuitability fraud. When USBII retaliated against him for reporting that information, it therefore violated Sarbanes–Oxley’s whistleblower protections.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2804082/michael-rhinehimer-v-us-bancorp-investments-inc/?q=rhinehimer&type=o&stat_Precedential=on&order_by=score+deschttps://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2804082/michael-rhinehimer-v-us-bancorp-investments-inc/?q=rhinehimer&type=o&stat_Precedential=on&order_by=score+desc