A US federal court in California has granted summary judgment in favour of a pharmaceutical employer despite acknowledging the plaintiff had likely engaged in protected whistleblowing activity.
The case, Han v. Pfizer (No. 23-cv-039080-AMO), was decided by the US District Court for the Northern District of California and is drawing significant attention from employment lawyers across the country.
The plaintiff, a compliance analytics employee, alleged his former employer retaliated against him after he internally reported suspected illegal activity at the company.
He later reiterated those concerns while challenging a notice of underperformance issued by his supervisor, which he argued formed part of a pattern of retaliation.
The employer ultimately terminated the plaintiff’s employment, citing performance-related reasons, prompting him to assert claims under California Labor Code section 1102.5 and related causes of action.
In considering the employer’s motion for summary judgment, the court rejected the argument that the plaintiff had not engaged in protected activity simply because identifying compliance risks was part of his job.
That finding represented a broad reading of what constitutes protected whistleblowing under California law, consistent with how courts in the state have increasingly approached such questions.
Despite this, the court ultimately sided with the employer, finding it had presented clear evidence that it would have terminated the plaintiff’s employment regardless of any protected activity.
Central to that conclusion was a record containing years of documented performance deficiencies predating the whistleblowing activity, including repeated instances of the same feedback across multiple performance evaluations and corroborating criticisms.
That body of evidence was sufficient to defeat the Section 1102.5 claim, even in the context of confirmed protected activity by the employee.
Legal analysts at Proskauer Rose LLP, who wrote commentary on the decision, noted that Han serves as a reminder that California courts continue to construe protected activity rather broadly.
The case nonetheless underscores the value of consistent, contemporaneous documentation of an employee’s performance issues and a robust disciplinary process in defending against retaliation claims.
For employers operating in California, the ruling offers a practical blueprint for building defensible termination decisions even where whistleblowing has occurred within the organisation.