Judge rejects suit over Western State Hospital firing

Citing a "shocking pattern of physical and verbal harassment," a federal judge dismissed a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by a former Western State Hospital manager accused of harassing at least 15 female co-workers.

The ruling is a victory for female employees at the hospital and the state Department of Social and Health Services.

The case involves one of state government's most extensive employee-misconduct investigations and already has cost taxpayers nearly $2 million in settlements, investigations and consultants, not counting attorneys' fees.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton ruled Tuesday against Barrette Green, who claimed he was fired not for sexual harassment but because he was black and an outspoken leader in the biggest union at the hospital, where he worked for 15 years.

Green was fired in November 2003, after the DSHS paid $896,000 to a co-worker who accused him of harassing her and then using his position as a union leader to retaliate against her. Administrators at the psychiatric hospital also were accused of turning a blind eye to Green — known in the union as "the Green Machine" — to appease the union, the Washington Federation of State Employees.

Those accusations prompted DSHS to hire a slew of private investigators and consultants to clean house, and eventually the case resulted in more aggressive policies against workplace harassment and retaliation at the state's largest agency.

The chief executive officer at the Lakewood, Pierce County, hospital also was fired, and 51 people were investigated for employee complaints that surfaced in the scandal. None of those complaints resulted in a termination, according to DSHS.

As a result of the scandal, more than 90 percent of the hospital's 1,850 managers and staff members have undergone sexual-harassment training. A bill is pending in the Legislature that would require all state agencies to follow suit.

The DSHS Olympia headquarters also set up a 24-hour complaint hotline for employees that circumvents hospital managers, and the agency barred supervisors from dating subordinates.

"It is a shame it took a decade for Western State Hospital and DSHS to get it right, but they have," said Marilyn Endriss, a Seattle attorney who represented two of Green's alleged victims.

Green, reached at his home in Olympia, declined to comment. He could appeal Leighton's ruling, and he is scheduled to have a hearing in May before the state Personnel Board of Appeals, which hears grievances from civil-service employees. Green is appealing his termination.

"I don't want to jeopardize any action [my attorney] deems necessary," Green said.

DSHS spokesman Jeff Weathersby said the agency declined to discuss the case because of the pending appeals-board hearing. "We thought the judge's decision was appropriate," Weathersby said.

In his lawsuit, filed in Tacoma, Green accused the state of a conspiracy to fire him, racial discrimination and retaliation for his union activities.

The suit also named his accusers and the investigator hired by DSHS to probe their claims.

Green's attorney, Curman Sebree, did not return a phone call yesterday.

Leighton dismissed all Green's claims, describing him as a "Jekyll and Hyde" character.

His supporters, Leighton noted, describe Green as a sensitive labor advocate, but he also said there was exhaustive evidence that he was a serial offender, having sex on hospital grounds, using graphic and unwanted come-ons, and issuing threats that he would use his union role to punish whistle-blowers.

He was accused by two women of sexual harassment within a year of being hired in 1989, but he was exonerated by hospital management. However, in June, DSHS settled with one of those women for $175,000 and more than five months of paid leave.

According to court testimony, Green continued his lurid come-ons as he prospered over the next decade at the hospital and within the union. He was reprimanded in 2001 for harassment and ordered to attend sexual-harassment training, but he failed to attend.

He was put on paid leave in April 2003, after a group of women came forward in a lawsuit against him, prompting the state to settle midtrial.

Three of the women who testified reported threats at their homes, including break-ins and a dead rabbit being left on a porch. Two of those women plan to sue within a week, and they are still rattled by the incidents, said Darrell Cochran, a Tacoma attorney.

"They ask me on a routine basis how they can sleep when [Green] might come back and take retaliatory action," said Cochran.

A private sexual-harassment consultant, Jan Salisbury, was hired in June 2003 to check out the claims against Green.

Salisbury's firm interviewed 97 people, an investigation that state attorneys called the most extensive sexual-harassment investigation in state history. Salisbury's conclusions: Green's accusers were credible and the DSHS needed to change a culture that allowed him to thrive.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com