Question: The University of Wyoming employed Corrine Sheaffer for more than twenty-five years. However, in February 2004, UW terminated Sheaffer from her position as transportation and parking services manager. UW's position was that Sheaffer was terminated "for cause" for her role in a secret audiotape recording of a meeting of the UW Traffic Appeals Committee (TAC). Sheaffer's reason for taping the meeting was centered on the number of appeals that were being granted and a general lack of consistency in the handling of the appeals. There was a generalized perception by Sheaffer that the members of the TAC were biased in favor of faculty, administration, and student athletes.
Sheaffer believed that the only way to get the upper administration to sit up and take notice was to make them hear exactly what went on in the meetings. She also complained that the language used in the hearings created an abusive work environment amounting to sexual harassment. When she was fired, she charged retaliatory discharge. Absent any justification for the eavesdropping, was Sheaffer guilty of an invasion of her colleagues' privacy that was deserving of employer discipline? If she was trying to collect evidence of a sexually hostile work environment, did this justify her conduct? If Wyoming has a whistleblower statute, do you think she should qualify as a protected whistleblower? See Sheaffer v. State ex rel. University of Wyoming, 2009 WL 387269 (Wyoming Supreme Court, February 18, 2009).