An appellate court upheld the dismissal of her case as a matter of statutory interpretation. It found that the rules governing members of the Florida Bar were not included under the Florida Whistleblower Act because they didn’t originate from a legislatively enacted statute, ordinance, or administrative rule as 2009->Ch0448->Section%20101#0448.101″>defined by the Act itself.

In this case, Snow v. Ruden, 896. So.2d 787 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005), an attorney who worked for a large firm was fired after she complained that her supervisor was misappropriating client funds. She first reported the conduct to the firm’s managing partner, the office manager, and the head human resource officer. They told her she was causing trouble & to leave it alone.

She then reported the misconduct to the State Attorney. When the firm found out, they fired her (she was employed under an at-will contract). She filed a lawsuit under Florida’s Private Sector Whistleblower Act, claiming that her termination was in retaliation for her refusal to join in the firm’s after-the-fact cover-up of illegal and unethical conduct.

Specifically, the diversion of client funds was an act of theft and she was ethically bound to report the illegal conduct under Rule 4-8.3 of the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct. Once her superiors were informed, they too had an obligation to report it up the chain-of-command. In other words, Bar rules obligated her and her firm to report any serious misconduct which might affect the integrity of the profession and Florida’s Whistleblower statute should have protected her for doing so.

Wrong.

An appellate court upheld the dismissal of her case as a matter of statutory interpretation. It found that the rules governing members of the Florida Bar were not included under the Florida Whistleblower Act because they didn’t originate from a legislatively enacted statute, ordinance, or administrative rule as 2009->Ch0448->Section%20101″>defined by the Act itself.

The court’s reasoning is straightforward and their decision is based on the plain language of the laws as written. The court emphasized that its role regarding statutes is to interpret them, not extend them. It left it to the legislature to amend the statute.

That ruling was in January of 2005. To date, no bill has been introduced in either the House or the Senate on this topic. And while the Florida Bar has made minor amendments to Rule 4-8.3, none of them address this problem.

What makes this so incredibly outrageous is that the attorney she reported was later suspended from practicing law for the very misconduct she complained about. In fact, the Bar investigation uncovered even more violations (see the Florida Supreme Court’s disciplinary ruling at this link). He was later reinstated in April of 2006.

Presumably, if she had reported criminal misconduct to the police she would have been protected. But if the misconduct doesn’t rise to the level of a crime, the lesson for attorneys is either keep your mouth shut or you risk losing your job for being a trouble-maker. Violations of the rules of ethics aren’t considered serious enough to warrant Whistleblower protection, even though the rules themselves obligate an attorney to report violations.

Because the Florida legislature hasn’t seen fit to close this insidious loophole in the Whistleblower statute, it effectively allows internal office politics to trump both state law and the ethical duties of a profession whose reputation is already badly tarnished in the public eye. We ought to encourage and reward those lawyers who try to maintain the integrity of the practice.

But sadly, no good deed goes unpunished.