TRIGGER WARNING: The following story may be distressing to some readers as it tackles topics such as suicide
The lawyers for the deceased Boeing quality control engineer John Barnett revealed claims that the company spied upon him after he came out and became a whistleblower regarding multiple technical issues it was facing.
Barnett's attorneys, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles released the complaint on Wednesday (Mar. 20) out of transparency after Barnett was found dead in his pickup truck at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, on March 9, a cause of death that has since been speculated.
The lawsuit makes a number of bombshell claims about Boeing—currently under scrutiny after a series of quality control problems, including a door plug falling off mid-flight—charging they retaliated against Barnett when he tried to raise the alarm about defaults in their manufacturing process.
Barnett added that he suffered numerous instances of retaliation after internally reporting Boeing's failure to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) safety standards.
The lawsuit also indicated that Barnett was subjected to a "gaslighting campaign in which he was continually harassed, denigrated, humiliated, and treated with scorn and contempt by upper management."
"In June 2014, Barnett submitted a complaint to Corporate Ethics against [redacted] for violating procedures, ignoring process violations, pushing Barnett to 'work in the grey areas,' and having another manager spy on Barnett," the lawsuit added. "Although Barnett's complaint was substantiated by Corporate Ethics, no action was taken to address the complaints."
Barnett retired in 2017 after more than 30 years of service with Boeing, which he said was 10 years earlier than he had planned due to the actions he claimed were taken against him.
"That's the way it's done there," a Boeing mid-level manager told the New York Post on the condition of anonymity because he feared getting fired. There were always moles who would throw you under the bus to look good to the big bosses. They weren't about team unity; you never knew who you could trust."
The complaint—which redacted the names of specific managers—also claimed that during meetings, Barnett's senior manager had, on numerous occasions, announced to the team that Barnett was responsible for the rest of the team having to "be away from their families" and work overtime due to his insistence on documenting procedure violations or equipment defects.
On the other hand, managers complained that Barnett used email to maintain a record of defects rather than "face-to-face" communication—even though, according to the complaint, FAA Standards and Regulations require defects to be documented in writing.
"Leadership wants nothing in email so they maintain plausible deniability," Barnett wrote in a September 2014 email.
Boeing's response to Barnett's filing is sealed, and the company did not immediately respond to the Post's request for comment.
Barnett was seeking damages, including back pay, pay for the 10 years of early retirement, lost bonuses, lost health and life insurance benefits, medical expenses, loss of 401-K retirement and matching benefits, money for emotional distress and mental anguish, compensatory damages, and attorney's fees.
A preliminary investigation by the Charleston coroner's office found that Barnett died of a "self-inflicted gunshot wound," which his lawyers have expressed skepticism of.
