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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 2017)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2017 Jury awards former Hanford worker $8 million Forced to resign from contractor By ANNETTE CARY Tri-City Herald KENNEWICK, Wash. — A Benton County Superior Court jury awarded $8.1 mil- lion Tuesday to a former Han- ford manager for retaliation and discrimination. Julie Atwood was forced to resign from U.S. Department of Energy contractor Mission Support Alliance in 2013. She fi led a civil lawsuit against the contractor and one of its vice presidents, Steve Young, who also is the mayor of Kennewick. The jury found that Mis- sion Support Alliance retali- ated and discriminated against Atwood, and that Young aided and abetted. The verdict includes $2.1 million in lost wages and ben- efi ts, covering both past and potential future wages. The remaining $6 million is for emotional harm. The jury reached the ver- dict after deliberating less than a day, following nearly three weeks of testimony. Atwood’s attorney, Jack Sheridan of Seattle, sought dam- ages only from Mission Support Alliance and not Young. Mission Support Alliance had no comment. Young could not be reached. Denise Ashbaugh, a Seattle attorney representing Mission Support Alliance and Young, argued during the trial that the company had good reason to want Atwood off its payroll. Atwood was accused of creating a hostile work envi- AP Photo A former Hanford worker who was forced to resign has won a lawsuit over retaliation. ronment, abusing her rela- tionship with an infl uential Department of Energy offi cial and timecard fraud. But if that was the case, she would have been fi red earlier or at least received counsel- ing or progressive discipline, countered Sheridan during closing arguments on Monday. The timing of her forced resig- nation showed it was really to protect Young, he said. Similar complaints Similar complaints were fi led against Atwood in 2012 and 2013, Sheridan said. She was cleared both times, but was forced to resign anyway after a short investigation into the 2013 complaint, he said. Atwood told investiga- tors interviewing her after the 2013 complaint that they should be looking at Young, not her, Sheridan said. She believed her comments were confi dential when she told investigators that Young was conducting city of Ken- newick business during hours he was supposed to be work- ing for the Hanford contractor and was being paid with tax- payer money. Sheridan claimed that Mis- sion Support Alliance lead- ers were told of her comments about Young. Three days later Atwood was told she was being fi red, but she resigned in an attempt to protect her reputation and pension, Sheridan said. She left the building dis- traught and in tears, pushing a wheelchair holding her per- sonal belongings because no handcart was available. She was humiliated, Sheridan said. Atwood developed an ongoing mental illness, with symptoms like those of post traumatic stress disorder, he said. She has not worked since. Atwood received no written information about why she was targeted for termination, Sheri- dan said. But in 2014 Mission Sup- port Alliance prepared a record of events on the 2013 inves- tigation, indicating she was cleared. A few weeks later another record of events was prepared that included addi- tional information, saying she was cleared but adding criti- cism of Atwood, Sheridan said. It was an “open secret” that Young did mayor work on a Department of Energy com- puter at his DOE offi ce during Hanford work hours, Sheridan said. Support staff kept his city schedule on his federal com- puter, Sheridan said. Young also relied on his federal staff for city tasks, such as delivering fl owers to city employees on a day to honor administrative sup- port specialists, Sheridan told jurors. Using government resources, including time and equipment, for non federal uses is a violation of the False Claims Act, Sheridan said. Mission Support Alli- ance had incentive to pro- tect Young, by getting rid of Atwood, Sheridan argued. Young played a valuable role for Mission Support Alli- ance and the Department of Energy because he also was mayor, Sheridan said. As mayor he could lobby Con- gress for more money for Hanford, which is good for both the Kennewick econ- omy and Hanford contractors, Sheridan said. Hires contractors The Department of Energy hires contractors, like Mis- sion Support Alliance, to do the environmental cleanup work at the Hanford nuclear reservation, which produced weapons-program plutonium through the Cold War. Mission Support Alliance is responsi- ble for support services across the site. The plan to fi re Atwood was in contrast with how men at Mission Support Alliance were disciplined, Sheridan told jurors. One male high-level offi - cial inappropriately touched the wife of one of the com- pany’s truck drivers at a com- pany event. The driver had to tell him to stop touching, tex- ting and talking to his wife, but the offi cial was not fi red, Sheridan said in court. In a second incident, a male worker who made derogatory comments about the company, affecting the relationship between the Department of Energy and Mission Support Alliance, was suspended for two weeks rather than be fi red. And in a third case a male manager took his staff out to dinner, billing overtime and using a company car. He was suspended two weeks rather than fi red, Sheridan said. Sheridan said Mission Sup- port Alliance changed when Pasco native Frank Armijo was named president in 2010, serving until 2015. The top management shifted from a mix of men and women to almost all men, many of whom were old friends of Armijo, Sheridan argued. Ashbaugh, the defense attorney, told jurors that Atwood acted as though rules did not apply to her like they did to her co-workers and others. She “cozied up” to pow- erful men at the Department of Energy , using that as pro- tection when she did not fol- low the rules or failed to meet the expectations of Young, to whom she reported, Ashbaugh said. “She simply did not per- form her job very well,” Ash- baugh argued. Atwood came to work late and then would be missing from her desk during the day, Ashbaugh said. Atwood’s attorney said her job duties took her out of the offi ce frequently and that she also had permission to work from home. The second complaint against her was fi led shortly after she returned from a last-minute vacation to Malaysia. Sheridan said Atwood gave appropriate notice, discussing a possible trip a month before leaving, but defense attorneys claimed the fi rst notice she gave was a text from the air- port to a co-worker. Made up the time Atwood accused Young of timecard fraud only to defl ect attention from herself, Ash- baugh said. A check of Young’s work showed that he was putting in more than 40 hours a week for Mission Support Alliance, Ashbaugh said. When Young had mayoral duties during the work day, he made up the time after hours, she said. Young was named in the lawsuit only to increase media coverage, the defense attorney argued. Losing your job is diffi cult, but Atwood “made it into an event it was not,” Ashbaugh said. She has only applied for a dozen jobs in the four years since she left Mission Support Alliance, Ashbaugh said. Atwood’s attorney asked for $2.1 million in lost wages, saying Atwood, who is now 62, would have worked until she was 70 and then become a consultant. He also asked for at least $4 million to $8 million for emotional harm. Ashbaugh had argued if the jury did not rule in their favor, all Atwood should be owed is about $71,000, or pay for six months, which would cover the time she might have needed to fi nd another job, she said. University of Oregon spends heavily on new recruiting drive By SAUL HUBBARD The Register-Guard EUGENE — After fi ve straight years of seeing its undergraduate enrollment shrink, the University of Ore- gon is spending heavily on an ambitious new recruitment drive. University leaders hope to expand the undergraduate stu- dent body by as many as 3,000 during the next eight years, from a projected 19,000 this fall to more than 22,000 in 2025. Those added students will have one thing in com- mon: They’ll all come from out of state, according to the UO administration’s fi nancial projections. The UO already has hired fi ve new full-time high- school-student recruiters who will be based in other states, in addition to two existing recruiter positions. This aca- demic year, the school also will increase its recruiting “presence” — typically mean- ing visits by UO staffers — in as many as 20 other states in the West, Midwest, South and on the East Coast. In total, the school’s annual admissions budget has been upped by $1.3 million, or almost 30 per- cent. Some of those extra dol- lars will go to in-state recruit- ing efforts. The UO’s push to recruit more nonresident and inter- national students isn’t new or unique. The UO and other public universities across the country have been enrolling more and more of them for more than a decade — a prac- tice that at times has drawn criticism. The UO’s goal is largely fi nancial: Out-of-state stu- dents pay much higher tuition in an era when taxpayer sup- port for Oregon public univer- sities has sagged. This school year, a full-time nonresident student will pay $34,611 in tuition at the UO, compared with $11,571 for an Orego- nian. Adding the projected 3,000 nonresident students by 2025 could boost the UO’s annual tuition revenue by $100 million at current rates. Snagging high-achiev- ing high schoolers from other states can also help boost a university’s academic prestige. In the past decade, the UO’s nonresident undergrad- uate population has doubled, from 4,600 in the 2007-08 school year to 9,249 in 2016- 17, going up almost every year. In the decade before that, the UO had kept that population fl at, between 3,700 and 4,200 students. From 2007 to 2016, Ore- gon State University and Portland State University also rapidly drew in more out-of-staters: OSU’s out-of- state undergraduate popula- tion jumped from 2,302 to 9,055, while PSU’s went from 10,829 to 15,060. #powerofrural Celebrating Hope CMH-OHSU Knight Cancer Collaborative n issio m d A eral Gen $25 d s an r o i Sen ry ilita M ive Act $20 Show star ts at 7 p.m . Doo rs o pen at 6 The CMH-OHSU Knight Cancer Collaborative has been built with extraordinary support from our community. The center has been designed to serve the entire region with expanded capac- ity and the most state-of-the-art technology found anywhere on the Pacific Coast. It’s truly been a journey of hope—for CMH caregivers, the community, donors, and patients who will no longer have to travel to receive radiation treatment. Join Columbia Memorial Hospital in celebrating this achieve- ment at a Community Open House. (630) 701-7193 Saturday, October 14, 2017 | 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Sunday, October 15, 2017 | 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday October 14th 1905 Exchange Street Astoria, OR 97103 Liberty Theatre Tickets on sale August 14th at the Liberty Theatre Box Office and online at http://libertyastoria.showare.com/rumours Nu-Way Carpet Medical Excellence without the Miles 503-338-4085 | columbiamemorial.org/cancer-care
