The employee of an Illinois law firm was fired when he refused to cooperate in issuing fraudulent bills to clients. The law firm claimed the hours performed by an in-hpuse employee were actually performed by an outside investigator. The firm then billed at the higher rates used by outside investigators. One of the in-house investigators, however, refused to cooperate in altering his invoice to reflect the higher rates. He was then fired. See Workplace Prof report.
An Illinois appellate court ruled that the firing did not violate any public policy in that state. Sad to say, but the same result would probably obtain in Texas. There is no law in Texas protecting an employee from reprisal for simply being honest. There is no law protecting a private sector employee from reprisal for even reporting violations of law by their employer. In Texas, this lawsuit would not be a whistle blower lawsuit since the employee did not report violations of law to a law enforcement agency.
The law firm, Karlin & Fleisher, will surely suffer from bad publicity. But, how many more Karlin and Fleishers are there out there who do not get sued?