(a) No local agency officer, manager, or supervisor shall take a reprisal action against any employee or applicant for employment who files a complaint pursuant to Section 53297.

(b) This article is not intended to prevent a local agency from taking, directing others to take, recommending, or approving any personnel action with respect to any employee or applicant for employment if the local agency reasonably believes that the action or inaction is justified on the basis of separate evidence which shows any of the following:

Terms Used In California Government Code 53298

  • Complaint: means any written document containing a disclosure of information as specified in subdivision (c). See California Government Code 53296
  • Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
  • Disciplinary action: means any direct form of discipline as defined in personnel rules and regulations adopted by the local agency. See California Government Code 53296
  • Disclosure of information: means the written provision of evidence regarding gross mismanagement or a significant waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. See California Government Code 53296
  • Employee: means any person employed by a local agency. See California Government Code 53296
  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • Local agency: means any county, city, city and county, including any charter county, city, or city and county, and any district, school district, community college district, municipal or public corporation, political subdivision, or public agency of the state, or any instrumentality of any one or more of these agencies. See California Government Code 53296
  • Manager: means any employee having significant responsibilities for formulating or administering local agency or departmental policies and programs or administering the local agency or a department. See California Government Code 53296
  • Officer: means any appointed member of a local board, commission, or other governing body who supervises or is responsible for the work of one or more local agency employers. See California Government Code 53296
  • Reprisal action: means any act of intimidation, restraint, coercion, discrimination, or disciplinary action against any employee, or applicant for employment, who files a complaint pursuant to Section 53297. See California Government Code 53296
  • supervisor: means any employee regardless of job description or title, having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, layoff, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibility to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend this action, if, in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of this authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment. See California Government Code 53296

(1) The employee’s complaint has disclosed information that he or she knows to be false or has disclosed information without regard for the truth or falsity thereof.

(2) The employee’s complaint has disclosed information from records which are closed to public inspection pursuant to law.

(3) The employee’s complaint has disclosed information which is confidential under any other provision of law.

(4) The employee was the subject of an ongoing or existing disciplinary action prior to the disclosure of information with the local agency.

(5) The employee has violated any other provision of the local personnel rules and regulations, has failed to perform assigned duties, or has committed any other act unrelated to the disclosure that would otherwise be subject to personnel action.

(c) It is not a violation of this article for an officer, manager, or supervisor to take disciplinary action against an employee if that officer, manager, or supervisor had no prior knowledge that a complaint had been filed by that employee.

(Amended by Stats. 1993, Ch. 503, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 1994.)

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