being asked to do a job that is by law illegal?

(Kearny, New Jersey, US)

My case in a compound of several things that forced me to quit, I was up until January 3rd of 2011 employed by a Drug wholesaler, Company which had asked me several times to retrieve information from some accounts disclosing their grug dispensing information for specific periods of time.
I complied with their requests even though it involved nothing to do with my IT associate position. I was the only one at the DC that knew the different pharmacies systems.

A majority of these reports contained patient information and also the drugs that they are currently taking.

I received several treats from different accounts such as being reported to the DEA for inquiring about such information, and some said they would call their attorneys and place charges.

I reported the issues to my superiors and never received the reassurance that the job I was asked to do was ethical or legal at all, I also sent an email l to all the heads of the pertaining departments and no one ever replied.

Then I conducted my own investigation and found out that there is in fact a law called "Hipec Law" that clearly stipulates that this is not only unethical, but also against the law.

Several other sales representatives received the same treats when they attempted to ask for this information, and therefore stopped trying and left everything on lu lap to do.....and once it was clear to me that I was breaking the law I wrote my final letter of resignation.

I had resigned twice before and my resignation letters were never accepted, my record at the company is perfect and so have been my reviews every year, but being that I was also working a tremendous amount of hours ( over 1000 over time hours ) in 2010 alone, I had also told them that the lack of sleep and the amount of stress was affecting me physically and mentally, I always stayed because I believed their false intentions to hire additional personal, by the time I left I was running basically four departments with the pathetic salary of 16.68 $ and hour. I was the team leader for the merchandiser staff, IT department, DC reports and queries/ Field tech./internal support/ help desk and also did other jobs such as hospital inventories and labeling their pharmacy departments that involved traveling to other states and some times for an entire week at a time , so I constantly found myself working weekends and 14 to 16 hours a day for about 3 years.


On my last resignation I just decided to stop showing up because i know that they would not let me go and probably would offer me something else that would never come just to make me stay a few more months, but the bottom line was that I would not continue to work with these Drug usage reports without being given the proper credentials to present to our customers,and this never was given to me. So I'd rather be W/O a job than keep breaking the law.




Hi,

The only question I have .. as far as unemployment benefits go .. because quitting because your employer is requiring you to do something illegal can be with good cause .. is this ..

Can you prove that all those treats you were getting was because of performing a request made by the employer and .. just how many times after you received your first treat .. can you prove the employer continued to ask you to do this .. I notice no one replied.

Additionally, why would your resignation letter not address directly and only the real reason for quitting your job .. I mean, is there any better way to get an employer asking someone to violate HIPAA to not respond to an unemployment claim than to lay out your case in the resignation letter?