Grant PUD pays $300K to former employees

EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners recently approved $300,000 in settlement agreements for two ex-employees terminated on May 5, 2005.

Employees Eric Briggs, a fiber accounts manager, and Lori Ballard, a project specialist, sued the utility in 2006.

Briggs claimed the district “breached its ?promise outlined in the blueprint (District’s Organizational Blueprint of 1995) that it would follow its policy of reduction in workforce through attrition and not through layoffs,” according to documents filed in Chelan County Superior Court.

Briggs also claimed he was terminated as payback for filing a “whistleblower” complaint against another employee, Steve Beckett, who allegedly used PUD contacts and equipment to build his own fiber system in north Grant County, according to court documents.

Beckett was let go from the district in 2003.

Five years later, Beckett was paid a $150,000 settlement as part of a wrongful termination case, according to a 2008 Columbia Basin Herald article.

Briggs was interviewed by the Grant County Sheriff’s Office about Beckett’s alleged actions on Feb. 24, 2005. He asked for protection under the district’s Reporting Improper Governmental Action and Protection Against Retaliation, according to court documents.

Instead, he was informed by Grant PUD Auditor Kim Justice there had been no retaliation against him, even after learning his job was being terminated, according to court documents.

Ballard accused the district of wrongful termination (breach of contract) and discriminatory working conditions and discharge on the basis of age, according to court documents.

She also cited the district’s blueprint in her complaint, stating the blueprint explained how employees would be reduced through attrition and not layoffs.

Ballard was replaced by a woman about 10 years younger than her, according to court documents.

Her replacement was married to a PUD union shop steward, who was allegedly critical of the Network Operations Center Ballard helped create because it wasn’t unionized, according to court documents.

According to the settlement agreements, Ballard received $199,500, with $70,843 going toward attorneys fees and costs, and Briggs received $100,500, with $37,384 going toward attorneys fees and costs.

Briggs’ and Ballard’s attorneys, Nick Gunn and Donald Mullins, of the Seattle-based Badgley Mullins Law Group, were unprepared to provide a statement when contacted by the Columbia Basin Herald, according to their paralegal.

Grant PUD Commission President Terry Brewer stated “Litigation is time consuming for district employees and the expense of outside counsel can be great when preparing for and participating in a trial.”

“The Ballard/Briggs settlements did in fact keep us out of court and those future expenses.”