Boeing sued over whistleblower death

The family of John Barnett, a Boeing whistleblower who took his own life, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the aerospace firm. The lawsuit alleges that the company’s conduct was the “clear, foreseeable cause” of Barnett’s death, and claims that he was subjected to a campaign of harassment, abuse and humiliation after he raised concerns about safety issues. Barnett, who was employed as a quality manager at a Boeing factory, raised a number of concerns with management about violations of safety procedures, as well highlighting defects in aircraft on the production line. A 2017 review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld some of these concerns. In a 2021 email included in the complaint, Barnett described himself as once “a very happy go lucky guy that loved his job, his company and the products they built.” But over time, he wrote, Boeing’s resistance to his safety critiques changed his outlook. “Each time I do an interview, a deposition or other stressful discussion on what happened with me and Boeing, I re-live [sic] those years all over again. It puts me in a deep depression for a week or two.”