JPMorgan Chase wrongfully fired a financial adviser in retaliation for his public complaints that managers pressured him to sell the bank’s own investment products - that, according to a federal investigator for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The advisor, Johnny Burris was awarded $64,400 in back wages and $100,000 for reputational damage, pain and suffering.

OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, determined that JPMorgan’s decision to terminate Burris resulted in part from employee behavior protected under the anti-retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Under the OSHA finding, JPMorgan would have to clear an industry complaint it wrongfully listed against him and expunge his Form U5, and would have to pay him reasonable attorneys fees.

JPMorgan, which said it will appeal the finding, said that: “Mr. Burris previously raised these same claims to a FINRA panel, with the same basic evidence, and the claims were denied.”

EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE FIRING.    Burris began working as a Chase Private Client adviser in Sun City West, AZ, in June 2010. Shortly afterward, he started voicing complaints internally about being pressured by managers to sell more of the bank’s products to his elderly clientele, even if there were better investment options for them. Burris also provided information about his concerns to the NTTimes, which featured him in a July 2012 article.

According to OSHA’s findings, in the following months, Burris’s managers frequently discussed how he was selling a low percentage of proprietary products, until November 2012, when Burris was fired. A JPMorgan manager supposedly went outside firm procedure by turning an oral customer complaint into a written one and by requiring Burris to list it on his employment record.