Writings

The expansion of the economy in the United States from the end of World War II through the first decades of the 21st century has seen the pay of top corporate executives far outpace improvement in the personal income of typical wage-earners. “In the 1950s,” Forbes magazine has reported, “a typical CEO made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker.” By 2017, Forbes found, “CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm soared to an average of 361 times more than the average rank-and-file worker ….” D. Hembree, “CEO Pay Skyrockets to 361 Times That Of The Average Worker,” Forbes, May 22, 2018 (citing Executive Paywatch project report from AFL-CIO). In 2024 and 2025, the AFL-CIO reported, the top 20 CEO pay packages ranged from $61 million to $189 million paid for a single year to individuals named.

Derivative shareholder litigation, together with regulatory enforcement, have at times briefly slowed the ascent of CEO pay packages to ever greater heights. As a test of whether extremely high sums in executive pay constitute actionable corporate waste, then, the derivative lawsuit is an instrument which may have effect to varying extents. Court rules, legislation and judicial decisions have brought the derivative action into the 21st century with parameters intended to strike a balance between self-interested dynamics of capitalism and a competing ethos of accountability to which directors and officers may be held. Roger’s detailed examination of this topic provides a comprehensive practice guide for attorneys representing parties pursuing or defending claims of a waste of corporate assets through excessive executive pay or severance.

Present-day whistleblower protections for federal contractor employees under federal law serve the same underlying purpose as the federal False Claims Act — as an instrument for uncovering fraud, waste and abuse in government operations. The protections have evolved, however. In contrast to the False Claims Act (which dates from the era of the Civil War), pursuant to which a citizen plaintiff can be awarded a share of monies recovered by the government, a federal contractor employee prevailing in her whistleblower claim does not qualify for a bounty, at all. Instead, the contractor employee may obtain compensatory financial relief in the form of back pay with benefits and the possibility of compensatory damages for emotional distress, and/or the equitable relief of reinstatement, and/or an award of attorney’s fees and costs. In another important contrast with the False Claims Act, a federal contractor- or grantee-employee whistleblower seeking relief must exhaust a rigorous administrative remedy process before bringing a civil action.

Roger Greenbaum has written a detailed practice guide which describes provisions of law granting job-related protections against reprisal for private sector employee “whistleblowers” whose firms are parties to federal government contracts or grants. The laws examined in this article provide safeguards for employees who make protected reports or disclosures to uncover gross mismanagement, fraud, waste of government resources, abuses of authority, substantial danger to public health or safety, and other violations of law, in connection with those federal contracts and grants. The provisions of federal law which are the focus of this article are now codified at 10 U.S.C.A. §4701 (herein sometimes called the “Title 10 Provisions”) and 41 U.S.C.A. §4712 (sometimes herein referred to as the “Title 41 Provisions”).

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [(herein, the “IDEA” or the “Act”)], 20 U.S.C. §§1400–1491, is designed to ensure the provision of “a free appropriate public education” to children with disabilities. 20 U.S.C. §1400(d). To reach this goal, Congress provides federal funding to the states, on the condition the recipient states must implement specific policies and procedures set forth in the IDEA.  20 U.S.C.A. §1412(a). Of note, in one of its most recent rulings on the IDEA, the United States Supreme Court held: “To meet its substantive obligation under the IDEA, a school district must offer an IEP reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.” Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas County School Dist. RE-1, 137 S. Ct. 988, 999, 197 L. Ed. 2d 335 (2017). Roger’s detailed practice guide on the handling of legal disputes under the IDEA presents a comprehensive review of the provisions of the IDEA, with analysis and discussion, including concerning the decision of the Court in Endrew F., intended to assist attorneys and their clients in construing and applying the requirements for the bringing of a cause of action for violation of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C.A. §§1400 et seq.

Where a parent of a child with a suspected educational disability disagrees with a local educational agency either on a determination regarding the child’s eligibility for special education services, or on the scope or particulars of a proposed plan of services resulting from the agency’s evaluation, a federal statute provides procedural safeguards for the benefit of the child and his parents. That statute is known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C.A. §§ 1400 et seq. Pursuant to regulations at 34 C.F.R. § 300.502, a parent who disagrees with the public agency’s evaluation has the right to obtain an independent educational evaluation (“IEE”) at public expense, subject to certain conditions. If a parent requests an IEE at public expense, the agency must, without unnecessary delay, either file a complaint to request an administrative agency hearing (“due process hearing”) to show that its evaluation was appropriate, or ensure that an IEE is provided at public expense.

For decades, investor-owned utilities functioned as vertically-integrated, regulated monopolies providing electricity. Firms charged “bundled” rates to furnish end-users with all three components of electric power service – – generation, transmission, and the retail provision of power. Energy shortages, improvements in technology, and shifting economics, however, propelled forward a wave of laws by the mid- to late-1990s to “unbundle” rates, deregulate, and restructure the industry. Restructuring aimed to foster competition and reduce electric costs, while boosting supply, conservation and efficiency. To ease the transition, these measures granted utilities a right to recover uneconomic sunk (“stranded”) costs prudently invested in power generation assets under regulation. The magnitude of stranded costs has proven to be enormous. In 1996 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission estimated that the total amount of utilities' stranded costs in the United States was greater than $135 billion. That estimate was equal to approximately seventy-five percent of the total investor-owned equity in the United States' utility industry. The issue of whether stranded cost recovery is appropriate as a matter of fairness, or wise as a matter of policy, has stirred a significant volume of litigation. Roger Greenbaum's lengthy examination of this topic was first published in 2012, in book form and online, by Thomson Reuters (West Publishing Co.), in the company's American Law Reports (6th) series. Roger's treatment of it collects and analyzes all the federal and state court cases that have addressed the recovery of "stranded costs" by utilities.