A PNNL manager claimed retaliation after Richland fraud investigation. Here’s what the jury thought

A federal court jury sided with Battelle, the operator of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in a case accusing it of retaliating against a manager who filed a lawsuit as a whistleblower.

The jury announced its unanimous verdict Thursday morning in a trial that began Dec. 9 in Richland.

It deliberated for about two hours.

“We’re gratified that the jury followed the evidence and cleared Battelle and PNNL of any wrongdoing,” said Greg Koller, PNNL spokesman. “As we’ve noted throughout this case, we do not retaliate against our staff.”

Jack Sheridan, the attorney for Aleta Busselman, who filed the lawsuit said he believes in juries.

“I have no complaint as to the conduct of this jury,” he said.

The case stemmed from December 2016 when the Department of Energy laboratory in Richland was tricked into sending a $530,000 payment owed to a construction company to a fraudulent bank account.

Employees fell for an email saying there was a new bank account for the construction company, which was building the $9.8 million Discovery Hall at PNNL.

Busselman said that as the lab’s enforcement coordinator, she was responsible for investigating why PNNL had been vulnerable to the theft.

She said that PNNL officials interfered with the conclusions of that investigation, saying the report was too critical of management.

Days after complaining about changes to the report, she was removed from her position, according to her attorney.

Defense: PNNL cooperated in investigations

But attorneys for Battelle argued that the investigation into the theft of taxpayer money was handled no differently than previous investigations.

The jury was urged by Battelle attorney Mark Bartlett during opening statement “not to reward her exaggerations and revisions to history.”

Busselman does not qualify as a whistleblower because her discussions with higher management on changes to the report were part of routine “give and take,” he said.

The change that was made to the final version of the investigative report, or causal analysis, was minimal, with both versions saying that the fraud against PNNL happened because of inadequate controls, Bartlett said.

The team preparing the analysis signed off on the final report, with all three team members saying they would not have signed it if they did not support its conclusions, according to the defense.

PNNL hid no details of the fraud from DOE, as is often the case with a whistleblower complaint, and cooperated fully in investigations by the DOE Office of Inspector General and Department of Justice, he said.

Job reassignment

Busselman did not lose her job, but opted out of a changed assignment she was given, according to the defense. She continued to receive raises to bring her current salary close to $160,000, he said.

She now is assigned as a project manager on high-level projects within the lab’s national security directorate.

Before being reassigned she had said she was unhappy in her position as enforcement officer for the lab and was struggling, Bartlett said. Busselman had said she preferred her previous work as a project manager, Battelle’s attorney said.

An earlier report by the DOE Office of Inspector General concluded that Busselman would have been removed from her position regardless of events surrounding the fraud investigation.

But it said that the dispute over the conclusions reached by the investigation amounted to a whistleblower action and could have contributed to her removal from her position.

Battelle ended up covering $430,000 of the fraudulent payment, with $100,000 recovered by the bank and federal investigators.

Busselman was asking in the lawsuit for reinstatement to her former position, management training on the need for independence in investigations, a prohibition from pressuring the investigation to change findings, damages for emotional harm and legal fees and costs.

“In terms of Aleta, she’s disappointed but she’s pretty resilient and she’ll move forward,” said her attorney.

This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 10:50 AM.