A Verdict Won, Lost, Revived—Then Lost Again
Murray initially secured more than $900,000 in 2017 when a Manhattan federal jury found he was illegally terminated after alerting UBS leadership that he was being pressured to manipulate his research. But the Second Circuit reversed that win in 2022, ruling that Sarbanes-Oxley plaintiffs must prove their employer acted with retaliatory intent.
In 2024, the Supreme Court revived the case, unanimously rejecting the retaliatory intent requirement. The justices held that whistleblowers need only show that their protected activity contributed to the adverse action; from there, the burden shifts to the employer to prove it would have taken the same action regardless—an intentionally plaintiff-friendly structure crafted by Congress.
Yet on remand, the Second Circuit again tossed Murray’s verdict, concluding in a divided ruling that the trial judge instructed the jury using an excessively expansive definition of “contributing factor,” allowing jurors to find liability if the protected activity merely “tended to affect” UBS’ decision.
