Ga. Panel Ends County Workers’ Whistleblower Suit

Law360 (May 30, 2025, 6:50 PM EDT) — A Georgia appellate panel said that Fulton County should have been handed an early win in a whistleblower suit from two ex-employees who said they were canned for reporting corruption by an elected official, ruling the county was justified in firing them for their own financial indiscretions.

In a unanimous opinion Thursday, the Court of Appeals panel reversed a state court judge’s ruling and said the county had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for ousting Sandra Ward-Poag and Lisa Rushin, who oversaw the management of a public concert venue owned by the county and claimed a county commissioner was using the venue for his own personal gain.

But Ward-Poag and Rushin, the panel said, had also been entangled in an audit of the venue that found “disturbing” improprieties, with Rushin also accused of using her position to get a relative a job. Thus, the court added, a lower court wrongly denied the county summary judgment on their retaliation claims. 

“Because Fulton County met its burden to articulate legitimate and nondiscriminatory reasons for the terminations, the burden shifts to plaintiffs to demonstrate that each proffered reason was pretextual,” Judge Benjamin Land wrote for the court. “Plaintiffs have failed to meet this burden.”

Ward-Poag and Rushin, according to the opinion, were previously veteran Fulton employees, with Rushin working as an assistant to top county executives. Ward-Poag, meanwhile, managed the Wolf Creek Amphitheater south of Atlanta.

In 2015, Atlanta attorney Marvin Arrington Jr. was elected to the commission, and Ward-Poag and Rushin alleged that he soon began trying to exploit the amphitheater’s resources to his own benefit, the panel said. Arrington allegedly demanded the venue be reserved for his own concerts, stored liquor and campaign materials on the premises, seized dozens of concert tickets, and intervened on behalf of a vendor, among other claims.

The two employees said they tried to resist Arrington’s influence, but faced verbal abuse from the commissioner, per the opinion. He then requested an audit of the amphitheater’s finances, which resulted in “numerous findings of misconduct” by Ward-Poag and Rushin.

Rushin, meanwhile, was also accused in another audit of the county’s employee wellness program of procuring a position for a relative with a vendor’s company, which was owned by another county employee.

Both workers were fired in February 2017 for “conduct and performance-based issues,” according to the opinion. Ward-Poag and Rushin alleged in their suit that their ouster from the county — along with various punishments on the job — were retaliatory for objecting to Arrington’s attempts to profit from the amphitheater.

But contrary to their claims, the panel said Thursday that only their firing could be considered as an adverse employment action.

“As a result of our holdings set forth above, we are left only with the question of whether there is evidence in the record that creates a genuine issue of material fact in support of plaintiffs’ claims that they were terminated in retaliation for their protected disclosures,” Judge Land wrote. “The evidence in the record does not contain such evidence and in fact shows the contrary.”

Specifically, the panel added, the finding of the audits were more than enough reason for the county to show Ward-Poag and Rushin the door.

“While plaintiffs take issue with how those audits were conducted and ultimately used, they have pointed to no evidence that the decision-makers gave dishonest explanations of their reasons for terminating them,” Judge Land added.

Counsel for the parties couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Ward-Poag and Rushin are represented by Rebecca Wyatt McLaws of McLaws Law Group LLC.

Fulton County is represented by Richard L. Robbins, Chuck Boring, Jeremy U. Littlefield and Melanie Leigh Johnson of Robbins Alloy Belinfante Littlefield LLC and Kaye Woodard Burwell of the Fulton County Attorney’s Office.

The case is Ward-Poag v. Fulton County, case number A25A0177, in the Georgia Court of Appeals.