Jury backs traffic planners with verdict against King County

King County transportation officials retaliated against two traffic planners after they blew the whistle on an analysis used to approve a large housing development east of Redmond, a federal jury has ruled.

More than five years after Ho-Chuan Chen was demoted and Hossein Barahimi was transferred to other duties, the two men — who still work for the county — were awarded a combined $293,000 for lost wages and emotional distress.

An eight-member jury ruled in U.S. District Court in Seattle Wednesday that Roads Division Manager Linda Dougherty and Roads Planning Section Manager Jennifer Lindwall took action against the two men in retaliation for their dissent.

The jury rejected defense claims that the men's jobs changed in 2003 because the county had to cut costs because of declining revenues. Plaintiffs' attorneys said only six out of 600 employees — including Chen and Barahimi — were laid off or reassigned.

County spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok said the county was pleased that Judge Marsha Pechman dismissed the county as a defendant, ruled out punitive damages and dismissed claims of wrongful discharge.

"However, we are very disappointed with the jury verdict," Ogershok said. "We feel very strongly there was no retaliation on the part of the supervisors. We're considering our options, including whether to appeal."

Even though the county was dismissed as a defendant, it is paying the legal bills to defend the actions of its managers, whom the jury found to be at fault.

The employees' labor union and their lawyers said Friday the county may end up spending $4 million to $5 million in damages and legal costs because of officials' reluctance to settle the case on terms Chen and Barahimi could accept. Ogershok said the county attempted to negotiate a settlement.

Susan Mindenbergs, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said documents provided her by the county suggested it had spent at least $2 million on the case before the two-week trial started, with five private attorneys, three paralegals and a computer-graphics person sitting at the defense table.

Ogershok said she doesn't know what the legal tab is likely to be.

Chen, 55, who was previously in charge of a small group that developed models for calculating the traffic impacts of development, said he was removed from that position and given a lower-paying job because he complained that another unit "cooked the numbers" on the amount of traffic that would travel Novelty Hill Road near the planned Redmond Ridge East development.

A hearing examiner found that the road couldn't handle the project's impact, but the Metropolitan King County Council later approved phased development.

"Barahimi went from designing the transportation model for the entire county to answering e-mail questions from citizens about where they could find bike maps," one of his lawyers wrote in a legal brief.

Discussing the case Friday in the offices of their union, the International Federation of Technical and Professional Engineers Local 17, Barahimi said supervisors instructed employees in another Roads Division unit not to discuss road-adequacy standards with him.

Barahimi, 51, said he kept working for the county because he had a mortgage and three children in college. He also felt a mission: "I went to school to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. What they were doing was not right, it was just not right."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com