Charges Dismissed Against Final Defendant in Time Card Fraud Case
WC Monitor
1/9/2015
Criminal charges related to Hanford timecard fraud were dismissed Dec. 29 against the final defendant who had pleaded not guilty. The federal government reached a civil settlement with Patrick Brannan, the base operations radiological control manager for former Hanford tank farms contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group, according to documents filed in Eastern Washington District U.S. Court. Brannan, who continues to work at the Hanford tank farms, agreed to pay a fine of $5,500, according to the settlement agreement. “The past three years have been very difficult times for my client and his family,” said Ken Therrien, Brannan’s attorney. “The emotional stress and the financial cost of defending against these false and reckless charges is now over.”
The agreement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Brannan nor a concession by the Department of Justice that its claims were not well founded, the agreement said. It also does not release other former CH2M Hill Hanford Group workers from liability, including some who have not been charged. Three other defendants who were to go to trial with Brannan in February agreed to pay civil fines of $22,000 to $44,000 in agreements reached earlier this month. “My client was fully prepared and committed to proceed to trial in order to defend his good name against these baseless allegations,” Therrien said. “However, recent events have made proceeding to trial unnecessary.”
Sentencing for Those Found Guilty Expected This Spring
CH2M Hill agreed in spring 2013 to pay $18.5 million to settle civil and criminal allegations of defrauding taxpayers through widespread timecard fraud at Hanford when it was the tank farm contractor from fall 1999 to fall 2008. Hourly workers for CH2M Hill Hanford Group would often refuse to work overtime shifts unless a full eight hours of work were offered, according to court documents. When the overtime assignment was completed in fewer than eight hours, they would go home but claim a full eight hours of overtime pay, CH2M Hill acknowledged in 2013. Brannan was accused of concealing the timecard scheme and ensuring that cleanup deadlines were met to allow CH2M Hill Hanford Group to receive corporate bonuses, according to federal documents. Brannan has strongly denied that.
The Department of Justice began reaching settlement agreements with defendants scheduled to go to trial in February after a jury decision this fall that acquitted four other former employees of CH2M Hill Hanford Group of charges related to timecard fraud. However, 11 former employees of CH2M Hill Hanford Group, including two former supervisors, have pleaded guilty to charges related to timecard fraud and could be sentenced this spring. Michael Ormsby, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington, said earlier that his office respects the decision of the jury but “we do not understand it to be a rejection of what nearly a dozen former employees, including supervisors, have admitted to along with their former employer.” The agreements reached “should serve as a further warning to those who would assist fraud at Hanford in any way — we will aggressively use all tools at our disposal to appropriately hold you accountable,” he said.
Washington State Supreme Court Declines to Hear Tamosaitis Appeal
WC Monitor
1/9/2015
The Washington State Supreme Court has declined to consider the dismissal of a case brought by Hanford whistleblower Walter Tamosaitis against Bechtel National, responsible for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, effectively ending that case filed in Benton County Superior Court. The state Supreme Court issued an order denying Tamosaitis’ petition for review of the lower case decision without providing a reason for the decision. “We agree with the court’s decision,” Bechtel National said in a statement. “We are dedicated to providing a work environment where all are free to raise concerns without fear of retaliation. A workforce that is engaged in this way is one of the keys to the successful completion of the vit plant.”
Tamosaitis is continuing to fight the case on two other legal fronts. The ruling does not affect his recently resumed case in Eastern Washington District U.S. Court against URS Corp. or a complaint against Bechtel, URS and the Department of Energy under review by the Department of Labor. URS, the primary subcontractor for Bechtel on the project, employed Tamosaitis. Tamosaitis had sued Bechtel in Benton County Superior Court, arguing that Bechtel had improperly interfered with his employment with URS. “We were hoping to change the interpretation of the law to give whistleblowers more protection, but the Supreme Court chose not to take it up at this time,” Tamosaitis said after the ruling.
Tamosaitis Alleged He Was Improperly Removed from WTP
Tamosaitis was the research and technology director for the vitrification plant under construction until July 2010, when he was removed from the project. He continued to be employed by URS until he was laid off in fall 2013, but with negligible job duties compared to his duties at the vit plant, his attorney has argued. He initially worked out of a basement office shared with copy machines. Tamosaitis has argued that he was removed from the project after questioning whether technical issues affecting the plant’s future safe and efficient operation had been resolved. Bechtel had a deadline to resolve those issues in mid 2010 or would risk much of a $6 million award payment. Construction at part of the vitrification plant is halted now because of technical issues.
Tamosaitis argued that emails show that Bechtel pressured URS to pull him from the project. Bechtel has strongly denied that it wanted Tamosaitis removed from the vit plant project for raising technical concerns related to safety. Bechtel and URS have said that Tamosaitis’ work at the plant was completed and that he sent a disrespectful email to a DOE consultant regarding technical issues. Tamosaitis’ attorney Jack Sheridan has said that the email was an attempt to get a nuclear safety issue addressed.
Previous Rulings Found Tamosaitis Failed to Show Financial Harm
Superior Court Judge Craig Matheson, who has since retired, dismissed the lawsuit Tamosaitis brought in January 2012, and the Washington State Court of Appeals upheld Matheson’s ruling in July 2014. Tamosaitis failed to show he lost wages or other money as a result of being removed from work on the project, the Court of Appeals found. Tamosaitis also presented some evidence suggesting that his removal resulted in him not being considered for some other positions at the vitrification plant, but there was no evidence those positions would have resulted in higher pay, according to the appeals court decision. The appeals court also found that Tamosaitis did not offer sufficient proof for his argument that he had not advanced to URS’s executive pay grades because his reputation had been damaged.
Sheridan, in arguments filed with the state Supreme Court, argued that an interpretation of state law that required financial damage to be proven to show Tamosaitis’ career had been harmed was outdated. “Future economic damages were obvious at the moment Dr. Tamosaitis was placed in the basement with no work to do,” according to Tamosaitis’ petition to the state Supreme Court. “It was just a matter of time before his career, which was derailed, was destroyed.”
But Bechtel said in state Supreme Court documents that the law at the heart of Tamosaitis’ suit clearly addressed a plaintiff’s economic interests. “The Court of Appeals properly recognized that the noneconomic injuries identified by Tamosaitis can be remedied through other causes of action, for instance a defamation action for damage to reputation,” according to Bechtel’s response filed with the state Supreme Court. Matheson‘s dismissal of the case “was not a close call and instead was mandated by the absence of any evidence demonstrating the existence of material issues of fact,” Bechtel said in its response.
