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
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