The Whistleblower Protection Law

July 11th, 2009 at 05:38am Under Administrative Law

It was not until 1986 when a law protecting whistleblowers is made. Congress added an anti-retaliation protection to the then existing False Claims Act.

A whistleblower is a person who tells on something he believes is an illegal act. The employees are the most commonly known whistleblower. They tell on their employers which they suspect is doing or committing an illegal act.

Under the Whistleblower Protection Law, the employee should not be discharged, denoted, suspended, threatened or harassed in any form that discriminates the terms and conditions of his employment because of the legal act done by the employee.

The employee may be of aid in many ways possible on the investigation, testimony and the likes. However there are some constraints under the whistleblower protection law.

Reporting illegal acts that are only within the company is a ground for exemption. But still there may be public policies that could protect the employee from retaliation

If it turns out that an employer didn’t actually break a law, the employee is still entitled to whistle blower protection from retaliation, if he reasonably believed that the employer committed an illegal act.

The whistleblower protection law does not cover employer retaliation for complaints about personal loathe. Office politics is not to be used as a basis for filing a complaint against the employer and use the whistleblower protection for personal gain.

In order for the employee to be protected from employer retaliation, he may the have a suspected desecration of any Federal Law. But the supposed violation should have provisions that the law violated will protect whistleblowers.

The Whistleblower Federal Law, unlike the False Claims Act, allows the whistleblower to file a lawsuit in a federal court. The Federal Whistleblower Law does not permit the whistleblower to go directly to the court.

The individuals concerned are pursued administratively. These individuals concerned could file a complaint or charge to retaliate with or without a lawyer to represent them. However if the case is not resolved immediately, the administrative law judge may then preside over the only evidentiary hearing that may take place.

A whistleblower should not attempt to delay an investigation of the possible legal remedy. To maintain this ruling, the retaliation should then be brought to the attention of an appropriate government official within 30 days, else the complaint could not be pursued.

Most states have some sort of statutory or common law “whistleblower” or anti-retaliation laws. Like the federal whistleblower laws, not every lawyer will know about these laws, especially laws outside their own state.

These states and the District of Columbia have recognized a public policy exception to the “employment at will doctrine”: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Some states have explicit statutory protections for whistleblowers. These include: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Washington.

There are also state laws that offer special protections just for their own state or local government employees: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Distance Learning Law Degree

July 10th, 2009 at 05:37pm Under Administrative Law

There are many different branches of law, so there are various legal careers dealing with different aspects of the law. Potential legal career could include being lawyers or attorneys to becoming police officers, court staff, legal support and administrative staff in private law firms or public administration. Therefore getting a distance learning law degree will open a up a wide range of career opportunities in the legal industry.
As societies progress, the legal systems and laws will become much more complex and intricate. Competition for careers within the legal industry will also be very competitive. That is why it is crucial for those looking to enter into the legal profession or those looking to improve their career prospects in the legal industry to make sure that they have the knowledge, legal skills and qualifications to improve their chances of getting a successful career in the legal industry.
It used to be rather cumbersome and tedious to get a law degree since you have to sacrifice several years of your life to study at a law college or university full time. Now with many colleges and universities offering distance learning law degrees, it is much easier to graduate with one. This is especially so for those with an existing career or family commitments. They can now study online at their own time and at home or wherever they are to get their law degree and to secure a career or improve their career prospects in the legal field.
There is a wide range of choices when it comes to finding the ideal online law degree program to join. You can choose distance learning law degrees ranging from paralegal, legal administration to criminal justice, law enforcement, correction officer, constitutional law and administrative law. You can find a degree which you are interested in for the legal career that you wish to pursue.
Depending on the branch of law you wish to pursue a career in, you may need existing skills or qualification, and this is something you should look into before you apply for a distance learning program
Here are some of the universities and colleges that offer online law degree programs. They are the University Of Phoenix Online, Concord Law School, Strayer University Online, Capella University Online, DeVry University and South University Online.
Research them out before you make any application. If possible, ask the universities for some referrals so that you can communicate with some of the present and past distance learning students during your due diligence in choosing a good law school offering distance learning law degrees.

The United States Food and Drug Administration and Nafta

July 10th, 2009 at 11:38am Under Administrative Law

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) helps safeguard the ability of the United States Food and Drug Administration to ensure food safety and quality within North America. NAFTA is an agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico that took effect on January 1, 1994, designed to increase the scope for the free flow trade and investment among these three countries. The US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), which participated in the negotiation of NAFTA, has reviewed the US Food and Drug Administration standards for safety, purity and appropriate labeling of foods and has determined that these standards are consistent with the terms of the agreement. This is why no changes in US Food and Drug Administration standards are needed or proposed to implement NAFTA.

NAFTA does not change existing or future US Food and Drug Administration standards regarding pesticide use or pesticide and other chemical residue or contaminant standards for fresh or processed foods. NAFTA provisions safeguard the ability of the US Food Drug Administration to ensure food safety. In short, existing US Food and Drug Administration standards will continue to be applied to imported foods as well as domestically produced foods. This means that the U.S. will continue to prohibit any food shipments determined not to meet pesticide residue or other food safety requirements.

NAFTA has no effect on U.S. Food and Drug Administration laws and regulations in the area of safety, effectiveness, and appropriate labeling of human and animal drugs and medical devices. Any products coming into the U.S. must continue to meet all US FDA standards and requirements.

Additionally, NAFTA does not change or affect US Food Drug Administration laws and regulations with respect to US Food and Drug safety and appropriate labeling of dietary supplements imported in to the U.S. U.S. FDA and TWG

Within the auspices of the NAFTA, the three countries have developed a technical working group on pesticides called TWG. It serves as a focal point for all issues related to pesticides for these countries. TWG’s aim is to ensure that the countries can be assured of the legality and safety of foods produced in any of the NAFTA countries. US food and drug administration is providing trilateral cooperation between Mexico and Canada to enforce the TWG standards.

Article 723(6) makes explicit that any party challenging a U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety measure would have the burden of showing that the US Food and Drug measure is inconsistent with NAFTA. Whether any particular level of protection is “appropriate” is a social and political judgment that the agreement reserves for the government applying the measure (see Articles 712(2) and 724). As provided in Article 712, a sanitary measure is to be based on a risk assessment “as appropriate to the circumstances,” and is not to be maintained where there is no longer a scientific basis for it. US Food and Drug Administration standards are already based on risk assessments and have a scientific basis. These NAFTA requirements help assure that measures applied by the other parties will not unfairly exclude U.S. food exports.

Feldman Law Center – The New York Times gets it About Half Right

July 10th, 2009 at 05:38am Under Administrative Law

Feldman Law Center – A recent New York Times editorial indicates that the Obama honeymoon may be coming to end as the faltering economy continues to eliminate jobs and a tidal wave of foreclosures grows by the month. Through May foreclosure filings reached the one million mark with estimates for the whole of 2009 coming in at 2.4 million. The foreclosure issue, as large as it is presently, could easily exceed the current yearend estimates if job losses stay at their current pace of over 600,000 per month. As it stands, 15.4 homes are currently underwater with mortgage balances that exceed home values. Additionally, 5.4 million homes are currently delinquent or at some stage of the foreclosure process.

The New York Times concludes that “The Obama administration needs to step up its efforts to aid the middle class — or the financial crisis will have no end in sight.” The Times proposes a two part solution to the foreclosure crisis; the first being economic stimulus to stem job losses, an argument that holds obvious merit. Their second proposal concludes that “Loan modification programs that reduce monthly payments may not be effective, because the bigger problem is negative equity.” They fault the administration for building a plan that centers on lower monthly mortgage payments while only recommending principle reductions instead of somehow making them mandatory. The Times also criticizes the administration’s anti-foreclosure plan which was recently gutted by the large banks and mortgage lenders.

The cure-all proposed by The New York Times appears to be focused on principle reductions across the board which would be steep enough to restore some equity to borrowers, giving them additional motivation to stay in their homes and allow them to borrow against their new-found equity should a hardship such as the loss of a job or illness occur.    

By the end of the editorial, the Times is calling for home equity to be restored to homeowners, jobs to be added to the economy, and steady paychecks for all. How banks remain solvent, who pays for job stimulus, and how regular pay checks are covered in this grand plan is left for someone else to answer. The Times does get it half right in that it’s fixing the economy that will finally curb the foreclosure crisis. The big questions again are how and how much will it take?

Ms. Ulery and Her Do it Yourself Loan Modification with BankAmerica – Feldman Law Center

July 9th, 2009 at 05:38pm Under Administrative Law

Feldman Law Center – Eileen Ulery wasn’t a real estate speculator. She was an executive assistant at Arizona State University that bought a condo in Mesa, Arizona for $77,000 in 1997 where she had lived ever since. Several years and a couple of refi’s later, her mortgage balance was up to $140,000 and then the bottom fell out. University budget cuts resulted in the elimination of her job, which she had held for over twenty years. With some severance pay and social security she was able to keep up but once the severance ran out, her mortgage payment was more than she could handle.After hearing about the Obama Administration’s new “Making Home Affordable” plan she went to the CountryWide (now part of Bank of America) website which directed her to the official government site for the program, makinghomeaffordable.gov. After taking a test at the site to determine her eligibility she was informed that she might qualify for a loan modification.    Calling the bank in April to start the loan modification process, the bank’s representative said that the bank was not doing loan modifications for “people like her”. The rep then countered with something the bank could do for her; if she could write them a check for $18,000, they would raise her interest rate slightly, and she could save $77 dollars per month. $13,000 would go toward her loan balance and $5,000 would go to the bank as fees to re-do the loan. The monthly savings would come from the reduction of her loan balance.Jenni Engebretsen, spokesperson for the Treasury, confirmed that homeowners like Ms. Ulery who are current on their mortgages but struggling with the loss of a job are eligible for loan modifications under the program. Eligibility, however, does not mean anything in terms of getting a loan modification done if the lenders are dismissing every do it yourself borrower that is not on the brink of imminent foreclosure. Rick Simon a spokesman for Bank of America Home Loans, confirmed as much when he said “The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers who are already in severe threat of foreclosure.” After acknowledging that Ms. Ulery had been offered a refi instead of a loan modification he said, “We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans. It’s still very, very early in the program.”Ms. Ulery’s experience in attempting to modify her own loan is not unusual. In fact it’s quite common that lenders will counter a loan modification request with either an offer to refinance or to set up a payment plan requiring higher monthly payments. Both types of offers do nothing for the borrower while providing the lender with higher interest, fees, and higher principle payments.Asked whether she took the bank up on its offer to refinance her home Ms. Ulery said, “I just laughed. It was a really good deal for them.”

“We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans,” Mr. Simon said, declining to say how many loans Bank of America had modified. “It’s still very, very early in the program President Obama promise that help was on the way for homeowners like her, people who had lost jobs and could no longer make their mortgage payments.Yes, she was teetering toward delinquency. She was among millions of homeowners rapidly sliding toward danger for whom the Obama administration had devised an aid program — some already in foreclosure proceedings, others headed that way as they ran out of means to make their payments. But unlike those in imminent peril of losing their homes, Ms. Ulery had never missed a paymentMore than three months after the Obama administration outlined a new program aimed at rescuing millions of distressed homeowners by compensating banks that modify mortgages, Ms. Ulery’s experience illustrates the mixture of confusion, frustration and limited assistance that now reigns.Through many months of wrangling over the fate of the financial system, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars dispensed on bailouts, distressed homeowners have waited for their own rescue amid talk that it was finally on the way. Modifications of so-called subprime and Alt-A mortgages — those made to people with tarnished credit — actually fell by 11 percent in May from April, according to research by Alan M. White at Valparaiso University School of Law. The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers “who are already in severe threat of foreclosure,” he said. “I just laughed,” Ms. Ulery said. “It was a really good deal for them.”

MESA, Ariz. — She had seen the advertisements for the new government program offering relief. She had heard President Obama promise that help was on the way for homeowners like her, people who had lost jobs and could no longer make their mortgage payments.But when Eileen Ulery called her mortgage company — Countrywide, now part of Bank of America — the bank did not offer to alter her mortgage. Rather, the bank tried to sell her a new loan with a slightly lower monthly payment while asking her to pay $13,000 toward the principal and a fresh $5,000 in fees. Her problem was that she did not yet present a big enough problem to merit aid. Yes, she was teetering toward delinquency. She was among millions of homeowners rapidly sliding toward danger for whom the Obama administration had devised an aid program — some already in foreclosure proceedings, others headed that way as they ran out of means to make their payments. But unlike those in imminent peril of losing their homes, Ms. Ulery had never missed a payment.“I don’t know who this bailout is helping,” she said. “We’ve given these banks all this money and they’re not doing what they say they’re doing. Something’s not working right. They keep saying they’re doing all this, but we don’t see it down here at this level.”More than three months after the Obama administration outlined a new program aimed at rescuing millions of distressed homeowners by compensating banks that modify mortgages, Ms. Ulery’s experience illustrates the mixture of confusion, frustration and limited assistance that now reigns.Through many months of wrangling over the fate of the financial system, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars dispensed on bailouts, distressed homeowners have waited for their own rescue amid talk that it was finally on the way. Modifications of so-called subprime and Alt-A mortgages — those made to people with tarnished credit — actually fell by 11 percent in May from April, according to research by Alan M. White at Valparaiso University School of Law. A Treasury spokeswoman, Jenni Engebretsen, confirmed that homeowners like Ms. Ulery — current on their mortgages yet grappling with a hardship like unemployment — were eligible for loan modifications under the program. She said mortgage servicers had offered to modify more than 100,000 loans since the department announced the program.But how many loans have been modified? Ms. Engebretsen declined to say, noting that the Treasury was working with mortgage companies to “fine-tune reporting systems.” A spokesman for Bank of America Home Loans, Rick Simon, confirmed that the bank offered Ms. Ulery refinancing and not loan modification. The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers “who are already in severe threat of foreclosure,” he said.“We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans,” Mr. Simon said, declining to say how many loans Bank of America had modified. “It’s still very, very early in the program.”Ms. Ulery, 63, is the face of the latest wave of troubled American homeowners, a surge of people in financial danger not because of reckless gambling on real estate, but because of lost income.Far from being one of those who used easy-money loans to speculate on homes proliferating across the desert soil of greater Phoenix, she has lived in the same modest, stucco-sided condo in suburban Mesa for a dozen years. She bought the two-bedroom home in 1997 for $77,500.For two decades, she worked as an executive assistant at nearby Arizona State University, bringing home more than $1,000 every other week — enough to pay the bills.Round-faced, wry and given to staccato bursts of laughter, Ms. Ulery regularly visits yard sales, seeking out plates and patchwork quilts for her collections. She takes pleasure in her two grandchildren and her beagle. She enjoys an occasional glass of wine, favoring a $6 merlot that comes in a screw-top bottle.“I’m not an extravagant-type person,” she said. “I see these big houses all around, and they’re beautiful, but I’m comfortable in my little condo.”Like tens of millions of other American homeowners, she added to her mortgage balance as the value of her condo swelled, at one point exceeding $200,000. She refinanced to pay off some credit cards and settle into a 30-year, fixed-rate loan. Later, she took out a home equity line of credit to buy a new Hyundai. She refinanced again in 2007, borrowing $20,000, mostly for a new roof. Over the years, her monthly payment swelled from about $600 to more than $1,000. With planning and self-control — she tracks her monthly expenses on a color-coded spreadsheet — she always came up with the money. “I’ve never been late,” she said.But the equation broke down last year, when she lost her job in university budget cuts. Ms. Ulery received six months of severance. She arranged a monthly $1,500 Social Security check. But when the severance ran out in October, her mortgage finally exceeded her limited means.With so many people out of work, and with her doctor counseling rest for a stress-related illness, she did not pursue another paycheck, negotiating to have her university pension begin earlier. She has been leaning on credit cards.Across the country, millions of homeowners in similar straits have been sliding into delinquency. Some owe more than their houses are worth. Ms. Ulery is among that unhappy cohort — her house is worth about $122,000, and she owes $143,000 — but walking away is not for her.“In my family, we don’t do that,” she said. “You pay your bills. And I wanted my home.”In March, she heard about the Obama administration program. The Countrywide Web site directed her to a government site, makinghomeaffordable.gov, she said. There, she took a test to determine her eligibility for a loan modification.Was her home her primary residence? Check. Was she having trouble paying her mortgage? Check again, and so on until the screen told her that she might qualify.In April, she called the bank. The representative said the bank was not doing modifications for people like her, she recalled. He shifted the conversation: if she handed over $18,000, he could lower her payment to $967 from $1,046. Her interest rate would actually increase slightly, with the drop largely because she was putting down more money.“I just laughed,” Ms. Ulery said. “It was a really good deal for them.”To which she poses her own question: What sort of deal is it for the American taxpayer? As she sees it, the same banks that generated the mortgage crisis are now getting public money to fix it, while doing little more than seeking new fees.“I don’t think the government gets it,” she said. “These are the same people you couldn’t trust before.”