EEOC v. Morgan Stanley
issues
Retaliation
You have a right to report unlawful conduct at work without it costing your job.
Clients often come to us because they spoke up about an issue at work and were later fired for it.
Others reach out because they’ve identified misconduct and don’t know how to navigate the road ahead.
Discovering that your employer may have violated the law can cause significant emotional distress. At the same time, there are real concerns that speaking up will put your career—and your livelihood—in jeopardy.
Federal and state laws generally ban employers from retaliating against employees for complaining about the employer’s unlawful conduct, such as race discrimination, sexual harassment, unpaid wages, or securities fraud.
Retaliation can take many forms, such as:
- Terminating your employment
- Demoting you
- Removing your responsibilities
- Transferring you to a less desirable department or assigning you less desirable work
- Lowering your pay
- Falsifying a negative performance review
- Taking other adverse actions that result from your protected activity.
Employees should understand that not all complaints are legally protected. Examples of protected conduct include speaking to a supervisor, filing a complaint with Human Resources, filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, participating in an investigation or related legal proceeding.
If you witnessed unlawful conduct at work, an experienced employment lawyer can help advise you on the best course of action, including when, how, and to whom to report wrongdoing and how to document retaliation by an employer.
Why Outten & Golden?
We deeply understand the emotional, financial, and legal realities of workplace retaliation.
Our team handles the full spectrum of whistleblower issues, including retaliation, executive compensation, severance negotiations, government-led whistleblower reward programs, and other related workplace claims such as discrimination, harassment, and breach of contract.
We pride ourselves on providing comprehensive legal counsel that helps our clients confidently move forward with their lives, while leaving no stone unturned in our shared pursuit of justice.
Notable Matters
Our attorneys have represented domestic and international whistleblowers across industries including:
- Employees in California, New York, Washington D.C., and other jurisdictions with strong anti-retaliation laws.
- Financial services employees who work in banking, hedge funds, private equity, or other investment or securities industry positions
- Public company employees who raise concerns about bank fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and other misconduct that affects shareholders
- Construction employees who work for companies that contract with state and federal governments
- Healthcare workers who raise concerns about patient safety, billing fraud, illegal kickbacks, or other violations of law that affect patients or providers
- Employees who work in accounting or finance who identify tax fraud
- Defense industry employees, in both the public and private sector, who identify mismanagement of federal contracts or grants, waste of federal funds, or other violations of law.
