Idaho judge dismisses whistleblower lawsuit against Attorney General’s Office

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — An Idaho judge dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Idaho Attorney General’s Office by a fired attorney, preventing the case from a jury trial. 

Idaho 4th District Judge Jonathan Medema on Friday granted summary judgement in favor of the Attorney General’s Office in the lawsuit brought by former deputy attorney general Daphne Huang, who had represented the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. 

Huang’s lawsuit focused on several alleged conflicts between Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador with the state health agency, including his investigation into millions of dollars of child care grants the agency distributed.

“The Court finds that viewing the evidence in the record in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, no rational juror could find Plaintiff had proven any of her claims,” the judge ruled.

The ruling, in response to the Attorney General’s Office’s request to dismiss the lawsuit on a motion for summary judgement, came before the case was set for a two-week jury trial in October. 

Her lawsuit was filed in September 2023 under the state’s whistleblower law, called Idaho’s Protection of Public Employees Act. The Attorney General’s Office has argued Huang was fired for misconduct — not whistleblowing.

In a statement Monday, Labrador said he will “continue protecting Idaho families and ensuring government accountability.”

“Idahoans elected me to protect families, uphold the Constitution, and ensure government follows the law,” the attorney general said. “The people of Idaho sent a message that they wanted to change the direction of the Attorney General’s office. When I took office, we began advising state agencies on legal compliance and setting our policies in place. While this former employee may have disagreed with our policy directions, the court found no basis for her claims.”

Guy Hallam, an attorney for Huang, said she was “surprised and disappointed that the court would not allow a jury to decide whether Mr. Labrador violated the law.”

“We believe that the ethical rules which govern the actions of attorneys in the state also apply to Mr. Labrador and the Office of the Attorney General,” Hallam said in a statement Friday. “It seems that the Idaho Supreme Court is going to have to decide whether that is true.”

RELATED | Idaho judge orders AG Labrador to be deposed in whistleblower lawsuit

Labrador’s subpoenas to Health and Welfare ‘were legally unenforceable,’ but not a conflict of interest, judge rules

In March 2023, months after Labrador became Idaho’s attorney general, Huang was fired hours after expressing concerns about the ethics of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office’s new management.

Much of her lawsuit’s claims revolved around Labrador’s investigation into $72 million of child care grants distributed by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

As an attorney representing the agency, Huang provided legal guidance twice to Health and Welfare saying the agency’s grant distribution was legally sound. Labrador’s office later revoked the advice. 

The judge found that civil subpoenas Labrador served on employees of the Department of Health and Welfare “were legally unenforceable.” 

But Medema departed from a separate Idaho judge’s past ruling that the subpoenas amounted to a conflict of interest between the Idaho Attorney General’s Office and its own client, the Department of Health and Welfare. 

The civil subpoenas, formally called civil investigative demands, were “the State of Idaho trying to subpoena itself,” Medema wrote. “… Thus, the Court fails to understand how Ms. Huang reached the opinion that the service of the (subpoenas) created some conflict of interest.”

“It is entirely irrational to conclude that the Attorney General of the State of Idaho, when he is investigating compliance with state law by state employees, now has an interest that conflicts with the interests of other officials of the State of Idaho … in their official capacities,” Medema wrote. “To accept that premise, one must logically conclude that those executive branch officials, acting in their official capacities, have a legally protected and enforceable interest in violating state law.”

But the attorney general doesn’t need to use the power of the courts “to stop some other executive agency from acting contrary to the law,” the judge wrote.

“The Attorney General does not need to resort to a power granted him by the Legislature and enforceable in the judicial branch to get information from the Department of Health and Welfare, the way he must in order to get information from private charitable organizations,” Medema wrote. “He does not need to resort to the power of the courts to stop some other executive agency from acting contrary to state law. He does not need to do so because both the Attorney General and the Director of the Department of Health and Welfare serve at the pleasure of the Governor.”

In Idaho, the state’s attorneys general and governors are elected in separate races. Before becoming Idaho’s attorney general, Labrador in 2018 lost a gubernatorial primary election challenge against Idaho Gov. Brad Little.

Former Health and Welfare director approved sharing phone with data with AG’s Office, judge wrote

Part of the case centered around Huang allegedly giving the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare the cell phone of her former supervisor, who was asked to resign days before Huang was fired. 

The phone had data that Health and Welfare allegedly claimed privilege over and was deleted from the phone before it was returned to the Attorney General’s Office, court documents show. That was despite a request from the Attorney General’s Office to return the phone with the data preserved, the records show.

Health and Welfare’s then director, Dave Jeppesen, had told Huang he was “‘fine’ having the phone physically returned” to the Attorney General’s Office’s then-Chief Deputy, David Dewhirst, “with the data intact,” the judge wrote. But days before Huang planned to give the phone to the office’s Dewhirst, Huang gave the phone to a Health and Welfare staffer after they asked for it, the judge wrote. 

“Assuming she was fired for her decision to hand the phone to (the Health and Welfare staffer), and assuming, without deciding, that handing the phone to (the staffer) was the only way in which she could have complied” with ethical rules for attorneys, “her claim still fails as a matter of law,” Medema wrote. “Director Jeppesen had previously given express consent to revealing the data on the phone to Chief Deputy Dewhirst.”