“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
What’s at stake in this case?
A fired company employee claimed his company improperly retaliated against him for whistleblowing.
What happened in this case?
Shashi Mehrotra was a project manager with General Electric (GE) as of October 2018, when he filed several internal complaints about “compliance concerns” with federal law. Several months later, GE told him he would be fired the following June, although he could seek rehiring. Mehrotra tried to get rehired repeatedly but was rejected.
Mehrotra then filed a whistleblower complaint against GE with OSHA under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, contending that GE had improperly retaliated against him. OSHA denied his complaint as untimely, as did an administrative review board of the Department of Labor. He then filed an appeal with the Second Circuit. Trump judges Richard Sullivan and Michael Park issued a 2-1 ruling that affirmed the administrative decisions in August in Mehrotra v Department of Labor, to which Biden judge Beth Robinson dissented. The majority agreed with the agencies that the discriminatory acts that Mehrotra complained of occurred outside the 180-day window permitted under Sarbanes-Oxley.
Why did Judge Robinson dissent?
Based on the record and past precedent, Judge Robinson explained that it was wrong to attribute all of GE’s refusal to rehire Mehrotra to a single “blacklisting” decision that occurred outside the 180-day limitations period. Instead, she wrote, it was clear that there were at least four discrete refusals to rehire him “within the limitations period.” She also noted several legal errors by the agencies, including the failure to recognize that under established law, “each allegedly retaliatory decision” not to rehire was a “discrete act triggering its own limitations period.” The majority was clearly wrong to dismiss the case as time-barred, Robinson concluded.
Why is the decision harmful?
The decision by Trump judges Sullivan and Park obviously harmed Shashi Mehrotra and his effort to get just compensation for GE’s retaliatory firing and refusal to rehire him. The ruling also sets a bad precedent concerning the statute of limitations for whistleblower claims under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, especially in the Second Circuit, which includes New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. The case also illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.