Lawson v. FMR LLC (571 U.S. 429)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 4, 2014 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 571 U.S. 429 · 134 S. Ct. 1158
- Decided
- March 4, 2014
- Term
- October Term 2013
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Privacy
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Held : The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded. 670 F.3d 61, reversed and remanded. Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court, concluding that § 1514A's whistleblower protection includes employees of a public company's private contractors and subcontractors. Pp. 1165 - 1176. (a) This reading of § 1514A is supported by the provision's text. Pp. 1165 - 1169. (1) The Court looks first to the ordinary meaning of the provision's language. See Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 108, 111 S.Ct. 461, 112 L.Ed.2d 449. As relevant here, § 1514A(a) provides that "no ... contractor ... may discharge ... an employee." The ordinary meaning of "an employee" in this proscription is the contractor's own employee. FMR's "narrower construction" requires inserting "of a public company" after "an employee," but where Congress meant "an employee of a public company," it said so. The provision as a whole supports this reading. The prohibited retaliatory measures enumerated in § 1514A(a)-discharge, demotion, suspension, threats, harassment, or discrimination in employment terms and conditions-are actions an employer takes against its own employees. Contractors are not ordinarily positioned to take adverse actions against employees of the public company with whom they contract. FMR's interpretation of § 1514A, therefore, would shrink to insignificance the provision's ban on…
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