BY MAIRE O’NEILL
[email protected]
A spokesperson for Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) declined to comment this week on a lawsuit filed against the company initially by two former employees, chief of staff and past human resources director Tashia Owens and Edward Martinez, a senior radiation control technician in January. The suit was expanded May 6 to include seven additional former employees.
N3B is the legacy waste cleanup contractor to Department of Energy Environmental Management at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Also named are HII Nuclear and BWXT Technical Services Group.
The civil lawsuit, filed in January by Santa Fe attorney Trent A. Howell, in U.S. District Court, seeks monetary damages under federal and state law for the 2025 terminations of Owens and Martinez allegedly after they each questioned N3B’s compliance with legal standards on federal acquisition, contracting, employment, and Environment, Safety, and Health. The initial complaint alleges N3B also terminated Owens and Martinez in conspicuous timing with DOE’s “deep dive” on N3B work under its DOE contract since mid-2022 “including whether N3B properly bid and billed DOE under the legacy cleanup contract. The case also contains claims under New Mexico Common Law of Wrongful Termination. View the Complaint here.
On May 6, Howell filed an amended complaint for False Claims Act retaliation, witness deterrence. negligence per se, wrongful retaliatory discharge, and punitive damages,...
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