State Supreme Court: Elected officials not covered by whistleblower law

Elected officials are not considered employees and are not entitled to whistleblower protections if they accuse city officials of retaliating against them, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The case involves Inglewood's longtime treasurer, Wanda Brown, who sued the city, Mayor James T. Butts Jr. and four city council members after the council slashed her salary and reduced her authority to invest city funds after she accused the mayor and city council of fiscal mismanagement.

Brown sued the city and the individual defendants for defamation, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The city and the individual defendants responded by filing a motion to strike the complaint as a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Deirdre H. Hall granted the anti-SLAPP motion and dismissed the defamation claim but allowed the other two causes of action to proceed.

The defendants appealed, and a 2nd District Court of Appeal panel, in an unpublished decision by Justice Frances Rothschild, reversed Hall and granted the city's motion to strike the claims for retaliation and emotional distress.

The state Supreme Court agreed to consider Brown's appeal of that decision on a single issue: "Are elected officials employees for purposes of whistleblower protection under Labor Code section 1102.5, subdivision (b)?"

Justice Martin J. Jenkins, writing for a unanimous court, ruled they are not, affirming the 2nd District opinion.

"After reviewing the statute's language, along with all the pertinent indicia of legislative intent, we conclude that section 1102.5 does not cover elected officials such as Brown," he wrote. Brown v. City of Inglewood et al., 2025 DJDAR 6280 (Cal. S. Ct., filed Aug. 1, 2023).

J. Mira Hashmall, a partner with Miller Barondess LLP who represents Inglewood and the individual defendants, hailed the ruling.

"We are grateful to the Supreme Court for its thoughtful analysis," Hashmall wrote. "The Court's decision confirms that public officials may not weaponize California's Labor Code protections for political gain at the expense of our public institutions and their constituents."

Richard P. "Rick" Kinnan, an attorney with Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack who represents Brown, blasted the ruling and said it undermines the state's history of protecting whistleblowers.

"For the first time in the statute's history, the Court ruled that elected officials have no rights to file whistle-blower claims, despite clear evidence that the City of Inglewood, through Mayor Butts and the City Council, retaliated against Treasurer Brown for claiming inappropriate misappropriation of City funds," he wrote in an email.

"We believe that this ruling is contrary to California's long history of protecting any and all whistleblowers in the workplace," Kinnan added.

He wrote that the case will be sent back to the trial court "to determine what, if anything, remains of Treasurer Brown's retaliation claims."

Hashmall agreed the ruling has significant implications for California public entities but said the appellate court was correct in determining that elected officials do not qualify for protection against retaliation under state law.