A Qualitative Case Study on How the U. S. Federal Courts Have Implemented Laws To Protect Public Whistleblowers

The United States (U.S.) Federal Courts are chartered to litigate public whistleblower claims. This qualitative case study addressed how the U. S. Federal Courts have implemented laws to protect public whistleblowers. Two laws that Congress enacted specifically for public whistleblowers are the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) and the subsequent 2012 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA). The problem was the federal courts appeared to have implemented the WPA incorrectly that resulted in a small percentage of favorable court decisions during the five years 2010 through 2014 and there was uncertainty the subsequent enhancing law, WPEA, will improve protection for the whistleblower. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine U. S. federal courts cases and examine whistleblowers and legal representatives' perceptions of justice applications of WPA and WPEA within the five years, 2010 through 2014. Data came from three sources; whistleblower court cases, interviews with whistleblowers, and interviews with legal representatives who were representing whistleblowers or were involved in the whistleblower legal process, within the five years addressed in this study. Researched data from court cases revealed judge's WPA and WPEA applications of the protective laws. Court decisions appeared to be improving in protecting public whistleblowers since WPEA was passed in 2012 but not all favorable decisions were based on WPEA provisions. WPEA did not alleviate WPA lack of enforcement but expanded on protective provisions. The triangulation corroboration method of the 3 research samples resulted in 5 high consistent themes that were individually addressed for implications to the research question. The high consistent themes implied the federal judges did not appear to make judgments based on WPEA in a consistent, stable or non-arbitrary manner. The conclusion of this study was the two laws, WPA and WPEA, did not meet all of the requirements stipulated in Rawls's theory (1971) and future data research would benefit society to revisit public whistleblowers' protective laws and Rawls's theory application.