VERNAL — A former Uintah County road boss who said he was fired because he reported inferior road work and other alleged wrongdoing on the part of the county has won his nearly 3-year-old whistle-blower claim.
Following a weeklong trial in October, 8th District Judge John R. Anderson ruled that Vernal resident John Kay is entitled to receive 90 days in wages, medical expenses and insurance premiums incurred since January 2002, and attorneys' fees. Exact amounts are currently being tabulated, said Kay's attorney Ray Martineau.
"It was an eye-opening experience," Kay said of the bench trial heard by Anderson with no jury. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for Judge Anderson and the legal system. He researched everything that went into trial. . . . I really do feel justice was done."
In his decision, Anderson concluded that Kay was fired by Uintah County commissioners Dave Haslem, Lloyd Swain and Cloyd Harrison in January 2002 for reporting inferior road work. He said that Kay's letter of termination came from out of the blue and included nothing of substance to justify the dismissal.
"I think the allegations of the problems in that letter of Jan. 23 (2002) were a little picky," said Anderson. "If the commissioners had lost confidence in him there was no attempt to resolve that, there was no attempt to work it out. I think these were little picky after-the-fact things . . . none of them cumulative would be grounds to fire the director of the road department."
Most of the employees in the road department testified that Kay was doing a good job. The judge said that was further proof he was fired because commissioners didn't want him to continue to work for the county because he had reported alleged abuses.
Kay said he was at a total loss when he received his termination notice because the commissioners had never voiced complaints or concerns with the job he had done from April 2001 to his firing in January 2002.
Kay filed suit against the county in March 2002, citing the whistle-blower act. He claimed his reports of serious engineering and surveying defects on the Dry Fork Bridge and other alleged road problems including wasteful spending were the real reasons he was fired from the position he held for nine months.
According to court testimony, Kay reported various problems to county commissioners, as well as to the Utah Department of Transportation, Division of Professional Licensing, state auditor, attorney general, county attorney and sheriff.
Kay didn't win on all counts.
Judge Anderson dismissed Kay's claim that county commissioners misappropriated over $600,000 to have the rarely traveled Stanton Road paved for the benefit of former commissioner Lloyd Swain.
Evidence presented by Richard Hymas, who represented the county at trial, showed that Swain was not an owner in Oil Tech, the business off of Stanton Road, until 2001, a year after the major road project was completed.
Hymas told the court that the commissioners were not aware of Kay's reports of wrongdoing and fired him because it "was in the best interest of the county." According to Hymas, court testimony showed that Kay's road crews had lost "trust and confidence" in their boss and the road department was losing one longtime employee because of Kay.
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