The Washington state Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday on a lower court’s $8.1 million award in 2017 to a former employee of Energy Department contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA) at the Hanford Site.
The support services vendor is asking Division III of the appeals court to reverse the award against it and former vice president Steve Young, who died in May 2019, in the wrongful discharge and gender discrimination case from ex-employee Julie Atwood, according to the MSA brief filed in November 2018.
Atwood filed suit in 2015. A Benton County jury ruled in her favor in October 2017 – awarding $2.1 million in lost pay and future wages, along with $6 million for emotional harm.
Mission Support Alliance in its brief called the award “shocking” and unsupported by facts. The Energy Department contractor asserted the trial court made various legal errors and hampered the company’s ability to put on a defense, including evidence of nondiscriminatory reasons for firing Atwood.
The company claimed Atwood was not a strong employee and sometimes behaved in an unprofessional manner. Mission Support Alliance also questioned the court’s decision to allow certain evidence but exclude other information.
Yakima County Superior Court Judge Doug Federspiel, who presided over the trial, refused to throw out the jury award, saying it was not so unreasonable that it only could have resulted from “prejudice or passion.” The trial judge also said there is rarely a smoking gun to prove gender discrimination and such cases often lean on circumstantial evidence.
Atwood left the company in 2013. She had been cleared in an internal investigation into time-card fraud, but was still informed she was being fired, according to the lawsuit.
Atwood claimed investigators should instead look at Young, at the time her boss and the mayor of the nearby city of Kennewick, who she said in court documents was doing city work on company time. Company defense attorneys said Young made up the time he spent on mayoral business.
Atwood also claimed senior management at MSA encouraged a “boy’s club” atmosphere and created a hostile work environment for her.
The three-judge panel listened to almost an hour of oral arguments and is expected to issue a written decision later this year.
Mission Support Alliance, once headed by Lockheed Martin, is now comprised of Leidos and Centerra Group. In December, the Energy Department announced a new potential 10-year, $4 billion support services contract at Hanford would go to a team of Leidos, Centerra, and Parsons. That award, though, faces a protest from another bidding team.
