Lockheed Martin sued for whistlerblower retaliation

Lockheed Martin has been sued by a former employee because the accuser says she was subject to retaliation from the company's management. 

The interesting aspect is not that a whistleblower has been subject to retaliation, because it is a natural reaction of people to be agressive when they are attacked. Even when the attacker is right. But the interesting part is in the nature of retaliation. 

Andrea Brown says she was forced out of her job after filing an ethics complaint against vice president Wendy Owen in May 2006. 

Brown, who was director of communications for Lockheed Martin technical operations in Colorado Springs, claims she resigned in February 2008 after her working conditions became intolerable. 

At one point, she said, she was told she had to reapply for her job and to move out of her office and go work in a storage space without a phone. 

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_11547111

In other words, she wasn't fired or beaten, but forced to resign due to intolerable work conditions. This is a general situation, if the case does not end up with the bankruptcy of the company, as in the Enron example. 

This kind of retaliation is preferred because companies, their managers, think a resignation will not give the opportunity to the whistlerblower to ask for compensations. Wrong! The US law, as well as the European laws, offer a sort of protection to whistlerblower because it tends to understand the reasons for which a whistlerblower spills out an unethical or non-compliance aspect exists, i.e., a compelling sentiment that they do the right thing (towards the public interest). 

Second, there are other cases I read about, when judges made clear statements against such behavior from companies. This contributes a lot to a general negative view towards the company. In others words, only the legal suit itself, and the media news, create a kind of general opinion not favorable to the company. The main reason for this (and I think this is also the reason that lies at the heart of the paranoid "conspiracy theory") is the disproportionate relation between the company and the whistleblower.