The Supreme Court left an 81-year-old retired engineer without a penny to show for his role in exposing fraud at the a former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in a ruling that makes it harder for whistle-blowers to claim cash rewards. James Stone stood to collect up to $1 million from a lawsuit he filed in 1989 against Rockwell International, now part of aerospace giant Boeing, over problems with environmental cleanup at the now-closed plant northwest of Denver.

The 6–2 majority found that Stone was not entitled to a share of proceeds awarded to the government in a lawsuit penalizing Rockwell because Stone had no “direct and independent knowledge” of the information he revealed, which led to an award of $4.2 million, a quarter of which he could have shared under the False Claims Act.

Main Source: Associated Press