Minnesota Whistleblower

Minnesota Whistleblower Protection Lawyer

The law office of John A. Klassen, PA, in Minneapolis, has served Minnesota employees for more than a decade in cases of employee whistleblower claims. Several federal and state laws provide whistleblower protection against employer and workplace retaliation. If you blew the whistle on your employer and suffered retaliation, our firm can help you get compensation.

John Klassen founded our firm in 1996 to focus on protecting employees against harassment, discrimination, and other workplace retaliation for whistleblowing. We can explain whistleblower protection, which you have a right to by law, and we can evaluate your case and advise you on how to proceed.

The purpose of my law firm is to advocate on behalf of and protect employees who have been victimized by their employers.

Attorney John Klassen

If your employer violated your right to whistleblower protection, it is important for you to talk with an experienced whistleblower and employment law attorney as soon as possible. Our lawyer, John Klassen, will examine your story and look at the evidence that supports your claim of workplace retaliation and violation of whistleblower protection.

We will talk with coworkers who may have been witnesses to workplace retaliation, as well as look carefully at the situation to try to prove liability by your employer. Workplace retaliation may take several different forms and we have the litigation experience to skillfully handle cases involving whistleblower retaliation, such as:

• Termination or firing
• Demotion
• Wage reduction
• Dead-ending or putting you in a job with no hope for advancement
• Papering of your personnel file with false reports of poor performance
• Harassment by supervisors or coworkers

If you suffered workplace retaliation like this or other types of harassment or discrimination after whistleblowing, we may be able to help you get compensation for lost wages, emotional distress, punitive damages, attorney's fees, and other types of damages.

Working to Ensure Whistleblower Protection

If you saw or believed in good faith that your employer or supervisor was breaking a state or federal law and opposed or reported it, you are called a "whistleblower." Minnesota and federal law provide whistleblower protection against retaliation, so if you suffered retaliation for your whistleblowing, your rights were violated.

Our firm has handled many different types of whistleblower cases and our clients have blown the whistle on their employers for many different types of illegal activity, including:

• Failure to pay overtime
• Deliberate misclassification of contractors to avoid paying overtime
• Orders to falsify mortgage, loan or banking documents
• Knowledge and cover up employment of undocumented workers
• Filing of fraudulent claims to the government, such as false Medicare and Medicaid claims

Similar to a whistleblower claim, a claim of an employer's illegal actions against the federal government can be filed under qui tam, also called the False Claims Act.

What Is Qui Tam?

Qui tam is an action on behalf of the government to protect it against false claims. Our clients in qui tam cases are an "original source" of information that their company or a federal contractor has submitted false claims for payment to the federal government. If your company filed false claims for payment under the Medicare or Medicaid programs, for example, you are able to file a qui tam claim on the government's behalf (you are called a "relator"), and receive part of any penalty and damages recovered if you file suit on the government's behalf and win. As the relator, you may be entitled to a percentage of the compensation or damages that are collected.

The amount of the relator's share of the recovery varies between 15 and 30% of the total recovery by the United States. The penalty per false claim ranges between $5,500 and $11,000. Most cases involve hundreds or thousands of such false claims by a single defendant, resulting in typical potential liability for the defendant in amounts reaching into the millions of dollars.

We can explain all the intricacies of filing a qui tam claim, which is similar to a whistleblower claim.

Contact Our Whistleblower Protection Attorney, John A. Klassen

To learn more about whistleblower protection under state and federal law or to file a claim for workplace retaliation after whistleblowing, and for assistance with qui tam and false claims act claims, call John A. Klassen, PA, in Minneapolis. We can be contacted by phone at (612) 204-4533 or through the intake form on our Contact Us page.