Originally Posted by
Matt48
Somewhat different circumstances I feel, Barnett was acting alone, he wasn't a 'ringleader' as such, and I don't get the feeling he was in it for the money, as an employee of Boeing of some 32 years standing, he would have known a time when engineering counted, when getting it right trumped getting it out the door.
I didn't, and do not, assert he was "in it for the money" and had noted (I thought obviously) the ringleader aspect of the individual in the unrelated lawsuit in which I was legal counsel simply to provide for a sufficiently clear squibb of the much longer story. And the point of relating that story is that severely disappointed expectations in an intense lawsuit situation, when realized in a sharp moment, appeared to have been the precipitating event.
The late Mr. Barnett had been intensely engaged in and, one would assume, devoted to the cause in the service of which he had embarked. I haven't paused to research when he first blew the whistle, or whether he asserted more than one set of company problems as time went on, because it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because just the commitment to a legal proceeding before the Department of Labor (pursuant to the applicable federal statute) would necessarily have required a substantial investment of time, effort, and most importantly, psychic energy. It would be expected that he sought a sense of his efforts being vindicated, even public recognition of same. Or at least the satisfaction of having brought the company's problems to light and seeing some change for the better in fact.
In many litigation matters, at the start of a dispute the gains a claimant expected to achieve were rationally proportionate to the situation and its facts. But as time went on, a mentality of a "quest" or "crusade" often set in. When a case yielded few gains for the claimant, or was defeated in court and no further recourse could be sought, in some instances claimants were reported not only to have been seriously disappointed, but with far more severe difficulties coping with the obvious tasks of getting on with their livelihoods or careers, and in some instances, with their lives.
What happened in the deposition that could have seriously affected Mr. Barnett? I've noted with interest that no one has said "I'd like to read the transcript complete with any exhibits that were used. Was the dep recorded on videotape? I'd like the record, please." Unless and until it becomes clear (and I'm not asserting that any particular legal standard of "clarity" applies here) that nothing seriously upsetting occurred in the deposition, I think it stands as the most likely source of a precipitating event. It appears at least plausible and perhaps likely that defense counsel raised serious lines of attack against him, by their questions and by their approach - not necessarily valid attacks, but recall, it's discovery, even only in the administrative process of DoL. If that occurred, Mr. Barnett's counsel might not have been able to assure him that negative impressions of his conduct and motives which (let's say) had been created by defense counsel on the record could be reversed or at least mitigated by their own questions the next day. I could see a witness in his place becoming despondent.
Again, this scenario is not a claim that he was seeking financial enrichment, despite the obvious fact that his DoL claim could produce a financial award. But if ever there was a universal litigation tactic, it is to wear the adverse party down. I agree there's a likelihood that the only satisfacion he sought was attaining the knowledge he had brought the company's problems to light and that these revelations had led to some positive action. If the deposition in some as yet unknown manner then appeared to crush those hopes, such an impression of lost hope, and prolonged litigation against an entrenched and (let's say) forceful adverse party, could have motivated his decision.