A FEDERAL JURY has made it official. Eric W. Payne, as he has long maintained, was wrongfully terminated from his D.C. government job because he blew the whistle on misconduct in city contracting. Will city officials now, at long last, do the right thing, acknowledge the injustice and pay up?

Money cannot make up for the shameful way city officials treated Mr. Payne. Nor can it erase the damaging message the city sent to honest workers wondering how to respond when they see wrongdoing.

But on both fronts, paying Mr. Payne what he is owed would help.

Following a two-week trial before U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman, a jury of seven women and three men last week determined that Mr. Payne was wrongly demoted and then dismissed in 2009 from his job in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Payne resisted pressure to take improper action regarding the award of the city’s lucrative lottery contract, and he raised questions about contracting practices in the office, then headed by Natwar M. Gandhi. The jury ordered an award of $1.7 million in compensatory damages. Mr. Payne also is owed back pay and other equitable relief, including payment of his legal fees.

City attorneys spared no expense and pulled out all the stops, including questionable use of laws designed to curb frivolous lawsuits, to oppose Mr. Payne. That he prevailed nonetheless, with far fewer resources at his disposal, testifies to the strength of his case, his fortitude and his perseverance. It is therefore beyond disturbing that the city will not rule out continuing its fight against Mr. Payne. “Nothing we can say about litigation strategy would be appropriate,” a spokesman for D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) said when we asked if the city planned to appeal the verdict or the amount of the award.

Allow us to suggest a comment that would be entirely appropriate: “Mr. Payne is an honest employee shabbily treated by the city. We deplore the way city officials ignored and then defamed him, and we welcome this opportunity to offer some redress.”

Mr. Racine inherited this case from the previous administration after becoming the city’s first independently elected attorney general. That puts him in a good position to turn a corner. The people worth defending in this case are not those who played politics with public contracts and then retaliated against an employee who stood up to the wrongdoing. Instead, Mr. Racine should be looking out for the best interests of his client — the District of Columbia — and that means justice for someone who did not what was asked of him but rather what should be expected of those who serve the public. Give Mr. Payne his money, an apology and, if he wants it, his job.