May 9, 2016

Today, the Court of Appeals reinstated the decision of the administrative law judge holding that Aaron Swanson was subjected to years of whistleblower retaliation after he reported that Lineworker Instructor Ron Allen had arbitrarily created and administered a test as a part of the lineworker apprenticeship process—a test no one could pass—then agreed to pass the apprentices if they brought him whiskey.  Every apprentice brought whiskey to class except for Aaron.  Ron Allen happened to be the nephew of the union’s business manager, and Aaron was shunned and harassed by crew chiefs while City Light management ignored his complaints.  The administrative law judge found in Aaron’s favor but the Superior Court overturned his victory.  The Court of Appeals agreed with the ALJ finding that the City’s former whistleblower ordinance was inadequate, and that under the State statute (RCW 42.41), Aaron produced substantial evidence to support his claim.  Open the Champaign!

Click here to see Court of Appeals decision

Click her to see the 2013 ALJ’s decision

April 21, 2017

Today Administrative Law Judge Lisa Dublin ordered the City of Seattle to pay Aaron Swanson over $100,000 in attorney fees and costs in connection with his whistleblower retaliation win in his case against the City.  The facts supporting the decision are outlined in the Court of Appeals opinion (see below).  Jack Sheridan, Aaron’s attorney, stated, “Aaron is very pleased that justice was finally done, and that the City was held accountable.”

Click here to see Court’s Findings re: attorney fees and costs

Click here to see Swanson Signed Attorney Fee Judgment Against City of Seattle

Tacoma, WA

July 6, 2016

Today the State agreed to pay Don Gillespie $700,000 to settle his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the Washington State Ferries. Gillespie is a Shipwright Foreman for the Ferries. He works at the Eagle Harbor Division on Bainbridge Island.

According to papers filed in the case, in 2015, ferry worker Steve Chaussee was awarded $1 million by a Thurston County jury for whistleblower retaliation by ferry management, who perceived Chaussee to be the whistleblower who reported another worker’s charging his time for being at work while he was really away from work coaching baseball. Chaussee was demoted twice as a result, but he was not the actual whistleblower.

Don Gillespie was the actual whistleblower. After he and Chaussee had reported the improper conduct to management without any action being taken, Gillespie hired a third party to take pictures of Ferry Worker Jack Nannery coaching instead of working. Gillespie drafted a handwritten whistleblower complaint, and he and the third party brought the photos and complaint to a meeting with an investigator at the State Auditor’s office, who formally received the complaint and the photos.

The investigator promised them that no one would learn their identities. Under the law, “the identity or identifying characteristics of any person who in good faith provides information in an investigation under this section is confidential at all times, unless the person consents to disclosure by written waiver or by acknowledging his or her identity as a witness who provides information in an investigation.” RCW 42.40.040(2).

In 2009, the State Auditor released Gillespie’s whistleblower complaint to the Ferry’s managers, and it circulated from one manager to the next. At the Chaussee trial, his managers admitted that they could tell from the handwriting that Gillespie was in fact the real whistleblower, but no one in management returned the complaint to the auditor, or made an effort to tell Gillespie that they knew he was the whistleblower. After that, Gillespie alleged he was subjected to a hostile work environment and ongoing retaliation, but he didn’t know why until February 2015, when Vern Day, the Shop Manager, submitted a sworn statement in court saying that he recognized the handwriting. In a later sworn deposition, he admitted to knowing that Gillespie wrote the complaint.

Jack Sheridan, the attorney representing Gillespie said, “We are very pleased that the State came to the table to resolve this case now. This case reveals a significant security breach at the State Auditor’s Office, which calls into question whether the identities of state whistleblowers who report fraud, waste, and abuse will be protected by the very department entrusted to investigate that abuse. We all hope that the actions that led to release of the Gillespie complaint will not be repeated.”

The case was set for trial in February 2017.

Click here to see King5 news story

Click here to see Gillespie complaint

Click here to see Gillespie Tort Claim

Click here to See Vern Day Declaration saying recognized handwriting

Click here to see Chaussee Verdict Form

Click here to see Chaussee Trial Brief

Someone blew the whistle on a State ferry employee who was leaving work early to coach a children’s baseball team and billing the State as though he was working a full day.  Mr. Chaussee proved at trial that he was perceived to have been the whistleblower when in fact he was not, and he demoted owing to his management’s misperception.  The jury found that:

• Chaussee was a perceived whistleblower
• Chaussee was demoted

And the State failed to prove that:

• The demotion was taken for reasons unrelated to Mr. Chaussee’s status as a whistleblower; and
• An improper retaliatory motive was not a substantial factor in the decision to demote Mr. Chaussee.

The jury also found that Mr. Chaussee suffered noneconomic damages in the amount of $1 million.

Click here to see Chaussee Trial Brief

Click here to see State’s CR 68 $10,000 offer of judgment

0Click here to see the Chaussee Jury Verdict Form

Click here to see attorney fee award

Dr. Walter Tamosaitis worked for URS at Hanford.  URS was a subcontractor to Bechtel, which was the prime contractor with the DOE at the time.  In the wake of a report detailing problems with the Hanford clean-up, Dr. Tamosaitis was appointed to lead a study reviewing technical challenges within the Waste Treatment Plant project. The WTP was being built to turn Hanford’s toxic and radiological waste into glass for storage.  The study identified twenty-eight technical issues, twenty-seven of which were “closed,” meaning resolved, by the planned

date of October 2009. The remaining issue, termed the M3 mixing issue proved to be a lingering and complex challenge. Dr. Tamosaitis wanted to extend the deadline for solving the issue to September 2010, while Bechtel wanted it resolved by June 2010. Failure to resolve the M3 mixing issue by June would have jeopardized Bechtel’s six million-dollar fee.

Bechtel rejected Tamosaitis’s advice and announced closure of the M3 mixing issue by June. Tamosaitis objected: He brought a fifty-point list of environmental and safety concerns to a meeting hosted by Bechtel; forwarded the same list to Bill Gay, a URS employee and WTP Assistant Project Manager; and reached out to several WTP consultants by email, hoping that they would oppose closure and publicize his concerns.

Two days later, Dr. Tamosaitis was fired from the WTP project. URS Operations Manager Dennis Hayes personally terminated Tamosaitis. Hayes directed Tamosaitis to return

his badge, cell phone, and Blackberry, and leave the site immediately. Dr. Tamosaitis was reassigned, in a nonsupervisory role, to a basement office in a URS facility off the Hanford site.

Dr. Tamosaitis filed a federal lawsuit for whistleblower retaliation under the Energy Reorganization Act.  The case was initially dismissed by District Judge Lonnie Suko, but reinstated by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, which made important decisions, including

• That even though Bechtel dismissed Dr. Tamosaitis from the project, under the ERA, URS could be held liable for an employer may be liable for the retaliatory conduct of another entity where the employer either ratifies or acquiesces in the retaliation by not taking immediate and/or corrective actions when it knew or should have known of the conduct; and
• That under the ERA, plaintiffs have a right to jury trial. This was the first decision in the United States finding that ERA plaintiffs get a jury.

Upon remand to the trial court, the case settled for $4.1 million before trial.

Click here to see Tamosaitis Second Amended Complaint

Click here to see 9th Circuit’s amended opinion

Click here to see signed settlement agreement

See additional details under the “Appeals” and “Trials and Settlements” headings on the Sheridan Law Firm website.