The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Maine
- Level
- State
- Authority
- P.L. 1987, c. 782; P.L. 1999, c. 351; P.L. 2003, c. 306
- Issued
- 2021-01-01 Jan. 1, 2021
- Effective
- standing; text in force throughout March 2020 to September 2021 (read as 2021-01-01)
- End
- standing (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing since Jan. 1, 2021 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Workplace rulesStanding duty
- Addressees
- employers (all employers, public and private); employees
- Character
- workplace duty
- Collection
- Standing duties: Maine DUT-ME
Operative words
No employer may discharge, threaten or otherwise discriminate against an employee... because:... B. The employee, acting in good faith,... reports to the employer or a public body, orally or in writing, what the employee has reasonable cause to believe is a condition or practice that would put at risk the health or safety of that employee or any other individual.
Penalty
civil remedies through the Maine Human Rights Act process to which the Whistleblowers' Protection Act is joined (26 M.R.S. ch. 7, subch. 5-B), including reinstatement, back pay and damages as the Act provides
What it required
Every Maine employer, public or private, to refrain from any adverse action against an employee who reported, to the employer or to a public body, a workplace condition or practice the employee reasonably believed put the health or safety of any person at risk, or a violation of any State or federal law or rule (including the emergency orders and the communicable-disease rules), so that the employer's compliance with the health protocols was policed from inside the workplace as well as by the State.
Retrieval noteRendered from the Revisor's live section page on Sept. 28, 2026; the section's history shows no amendment of paragraphs A and B after 1999, so the saved text is the text in force in 2020-2021. The remedies description is stated at the level of the Act's structure; The file date in the name is a placeholder for a standing statute.