Understanding Colorado’s PHEW Act: a Closer Look through Recent Case Law This is the second part of a two-part discussion on Colorado’s Protected Health/Safety Expression and Whistleblowing (PHEW) law. The first blog post discussed PHEW’s basic framework. This second portion summarizes recent state and federal court cases addressing the law. Littlewood v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., Civil Action No. 21-cv-02559-CMA-SKC, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15152 (D. Colo. Jan. 27, 2022) In one of the earliest cases filed under PHEW, Plaintiff Lauri Littlewood, a pharmaceutical sales representative, brought an employment discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Novartis. Ms. Littlewood claimed she was subject to unlawful retaliation related to her raising COVID-19 safety concerns, including urging the company to adopt stronger precautions. She later self-isolated after [...]

Understanding Colorado’s PHEW Act: a Primer on the State’s Public Health and Safety Whistleblowing Law In late 2019, Linda Rodriguez began working at Amazon’s warehouse in Thornton, Colorado. Just a few months into her new job, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, bringing with it a host of challenges she never anticipated. Rodriguez quickly observed what she described as troubling shortcomings in the company’s treatment of its workers during the pandemic. She noticed that warehouse supervisors were failing to communicate critical health and safety information to Spanish-speaking employees, leaving a significant segment of the workforce in the dark about evolving pandemic protocols and expectations. Disturbed by what she saw, Rodriguez began asking questions and raising concerns. But what she believed was a good-faith effort to [...]

Efforts to Reform Qualified Immunity There are growing calls to curtail or even abolish the court-created doctrine of qualified immunity. For instance, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has written separately from his colleagues to “note [his] growing concern with [the Supreme Court’s] qualified immunity jurisprudence.” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1870 (2017) (Thomas, J., concurring). In particular, Justice Thomas wrote that the Court’s qualified immunity analysis is no longer engaged in interpreting the will of the Congress that enacted § 1983 and other important federal statutes in the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Id. at 1870–71. Failing this, Justice Thomas expressed concern that “[o]ur qualified immunity precedents instead represent precisely the sort of ‘freewheeling policy choice[s]’ that we have previously disclaimed [...]

What is Qualified Immunity? You have likely heard the phrase qualified immunity, but what exactly is it? Qualified immunity is a court-created doctrine that shields public officials sued for violating the United States Constitution from damages for money unless their conduct violated clearly established law. What does that mean? Let’s dive into the doctrine’s history, interpretation, and application. Qualified immunity is a court-created doctrine. Broadly speaking, there are two potential sources of law in the United States: court-created law and statutory law. Statutes are passed by federal, state, and local governments. These include all laws passed by legislatures. For example, Congress passed 42 U.S.C § 1983 in 1871. Section 1983 provides an individual the right to sue most public officials and others acting under [...]

Citizens’ Right to Record the Police (Part 3) This is the third blog post installment in a multi-part series on citizens' right to record the police. The right to record police is broad but not unlimited. The right to record the police, while broad and vital to the healthy functioning of our democracy, is not wholly unlimited. The right only extends to recordings in public or on private property in which the recorder has a possessory interest. Further, someone exercising their right to record is not allowed to break the law to record. For example, if someone trespasses onto private property in order to catch footage, the footage is generally not protected under the First Amendment. The right to record is similarly limited [...]

Citizens’ Right to Record the Police (Part 2) This is the second blog post installment in a multi-part series on citizens' right to record the police. Exercising the right to the record the police can be instrumental to holding officers accountable and seeking justice. In 2021, police in the United States killed 1,149 people. There were only fifteen days during the entire year when an officer did not kill someone. However, unless there is a high profile killing or a video goes viral, the general public typically does not hear about daily police violence. For this reason, it can be extremely important for citizens to exercise the right to record the police performing their duties in public. In many cases, video recordings of [...]

Citizens’ Right to Record the Police (Part 1) This is the first blog post installment in a multi-part series on citizens' right to record the police. In May 2020, millions of people watched viral cell phone footage depicting a former Minneapolis police officer sadistically kneeling on an unarmed, fully restrained Black man's neck for a horrifying nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, ultimately murdering him. The victim's name was George Floyd, and his final words, "I can't breathe," became the rallying call for weeks of massive protests and an enduring social justice movement fighting against police brutality and systemic racism. Officer Derek Chauvin is currently serving a prison sentence of more than twenty-two years for murdering Mr. Floyd. Seventeen-year-old Darnella Frazier received high praise [...]