Ex-Boeing worker wins judgment for $1 million
A former worker at Spokane’s Boeing Co. plant has won a million-dollar discrimination judgment against the giant aerospace company and a former supervisor who is now the plant’s president.
Thomas S. Burchfiel, who is 52 and now lives in North Carolina, lost his job in December 2002, just as Boeing officials were planning to sell the West Plains manufacturing site to Triumph Composite Systems, Inc.
Triumph, a global company that produces and supplies parts for the aerospace industry, continues operating the West Plains site; Boeing, now based in Chicago, is one of its customers.
Burchfiel had been diagnosed with leukemia in August 2001, a year after taking a job as a sales manager for Boeing. He had worked for Boeing for 20 years up to that point.
He lost his job in December 2002, a few days before Boeing concluded and announced the sale to Triumph.
His attorney, Robert Dunn, convinced a Spokane County Superior Court jury that Boeing and MaryLouThomas, the former supervisor, had discriminated against Burchfiel on the basis of his medical condition.
After a three-week trial, jurors voted 10-to-2 to award damages totaling $1,007,000 to Burchfiel and his wife, Patricia. Jurors denied Burchfiel’s claim that Triumph and Boeing had retaliated against him for statements he had made to Thomas before losing his job.
Before the trial, Boeing attorneys offered Burchfiel a settlement for $15,000, Dunn said.
“That offer was ridiculous,” said Dunn.
John Wright, vice president and general counsel for Triumph, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
Debbie Nomaguchi, a Boeing spokeswoman, said the company was disappointed with the verdict. “Boeing believes we did not discriminate or retaliate against Mr. Burchfiel,” she said. An appeal will be considered.
As Triumph considered the purchase, it required Boeing managers to identify about 40 workers — 10 percent of the workforce on the West Plains — whose jobs could be eliminated, according to Dunn.
Dunn argued to the jury the end result, 38 workers let go, were Boeing workers either on leaves of absence due to family leaves or medical disabilities or employees with past discipline issues.
“What they did allowed them to purge their workforce, which is contrary to the laws of this state,” Dunn said. “This was their way of helping the new buyer come in and take over a clean slate so that it was more profitable” without medical or worker compensation claims, Dunn added.
The verdict, Dunn said, vindicates workers like Burchfiel.
“Employers have to be more understanding of people who’ve become sick,” he said.
Burchfiel testified that he took the job in Spokane when he was told it would be a key position to help boost sales of floor panels and other airplane components to after-market aerospace customers.
He was paid $65,500 a year in the West Plains plant as the company’s sales manager. While he was there, Thomas became the plant’s manager and sales supervisor. After the sale, she became Triumph’s West Plains site president.
A year after starting in Spokane, Burchfiel was diagnosed with leukemia. He took a three-month medical leave and then returned to work in late December 2001.
He learned then his sales manager’s job had been eliminated while he was gone. Burchfiel said he was assigned a menial job that had nothing to do with sales.
In late 2002, when Boeing managers announced the pending sale to Triumph, he applied for a sales job with Triumph. But in December of 2002 Boeing officials notified Burchfiel that he would not be hired by Triumph.
He later moved to North Carolina because his wife and he had relatives there.
“They told him (he would not be rehired) about three days before the formal announcement” of the sale, said Dunn.