Business Assault on DOL Judges Begins With Whistleblower Claims

A pair of lawsuits filed by Perdue Farms and Comcast Corp. that seek to have whistleblower claims heard before a court instead of US Labor Department in-house judges are the first signs of what attorneys expect will be a flurry of challenges to the agency’s internal tribunals.

Both cases cite the US Supreme Court’s June ruling in SEC v. Jarkesy, where the high court majority said defendants have a constitutional right to make their case to a federal jury when the Securities Exchange Commission is seeking financial penalties, as opposed to before an administrative law judge.

While that dispute involved ...