Federal Court Allows FSMA Wrongful Termination Suit Against Importer to Proceed
A federal court in New York will allow a wrongful termination lawsuit against an importer to proceed, after finding the former employee may have been protected by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The Western New York U.S. District Court on Feb. 27 refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Colin Chase that alleges he was fired for raising concerns with his employer, Brothers International, that the company was engaging in questionable food safety practices. Under FSMA, it’s illegal for a company to fire an employee for raising food safety concerns.
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Chase, who during his employment at Brothers International ran the company’s website, says he complained to management about changing expiration dates on potato chips before sale. Brothers International claims they were legally changing best-by dates, and there was no reason to be concerned about food safety. Chase expressed concerns to management about the sale of soggy apple crisps that he says were at risk of bacterial contamination. Brothers says Chase had no evidence that the apple crisps were unsafe.
According to Chase, once he had expressed his concerns to management, they called him into an office to sign a non-disclosure and non-compete agreement. When Chase said he’d have to review the agreement with his lawyer, the company officials told him he couldn’t. When he refused to sign, they fired him, said Chase.
Under FSMA, it is illegal for a company to fire an employee for telling the company or the government about, or objecting to, practices the employee “reasonably believes” to be in violation of FSMA. Chase says his firing was in retaliation for expressing his concerns to management. That made it illegal under FSMA, he said. Brothers International said changing the best by date is not illegal under FSMA, and that Chase had no evidence that the apple crisps were unsafe. The company said Chase has no reason to believe FSMA was violated, so he was not protected by the law, and the case should be dismissed.
U.S. District Judge Michael Telesca said Chase may have been protected by FSMA, and allowed the case to proceed. FSMA’s employee protections don’t require absolute knowledge of a violation, said Telesca in his opinion, but only a reasonable belief that a violation of FSMA is occurring. Indeed, the belief that a violation is occurring does not have to be correct, he said. The court ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence on the circumstances under which Chase developed his belief that Brothers International was violating FSMA to decide whether or not that belief was reasonable. Because the court found that Brothers International didn’t prove that Chase’s belief of violations was unreasonable, it denied the company’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
(Chase v. Brothers International Food Corporation, W.D.N.Y. 13-6297T, dated 02/27/14, Judge Telesca)
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