New Jersey Supreme Court Holds Just Doing Your Job May Be Whistleblowing

On July 15, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the protections of the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) extend to so-called “watchdog” employees—those employees whose regular job duties involve monitoring compliance. In Lippman v. Ethicon (A-65/66-13, July 15, 2015), the court rejected the defendants’ argument that watchdog employees must be acting outside of the scope of their job duties in order to engage in CEPA-protected whistleblowing. The court further found that CEPA imposes no additional internal exhaustion burdens on watchdog employees, rejecting the pro-employer multi-part exhaustion test established by the Appellate Division (and discussed in the May 2014 and September 2013 issues of the New Jersey eAuthority).