Power firm has to pay whistleblower
ATLANTA (AP) – A federal court has ordered Georgia Power Co. to rehire and pay $4 million to a whistleblower executive who was fired 12 years ago after he raised questions about the company’s management of nuclear power plants. Affirming a lower-court ruling, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals awarded the back pay to Marvin B. Hobby, former manager of the company’s nuclear operations division. Georgia Power hasn’t decided whether to appeal, company spokesman John Sell said.
In 1989, Hobby wrote an internal memo suggesting Georgia Power wasn’t following government policy as it turned over control of a nuclear plant in Waynesboro to Southern Nuclear Operating Co. At a meeting with Georgia Power attorneys, Hobby also complained that he was asked to lie in testimony. Hobby was dismissed a few months after he wrote the memo.
His attorney, Michael Kohn, said his client was told he had been downsized, but that years of vain attempts to find another job in the power industry suggested otherwise.
“They cut him out and then blacklisted him,” Kohn said.
The court agreed, writing: “He went from being a senior executive with Georgia Power, a large corporation, to working in a menial capacity for United Parcel Service after years of trying to return to the industry, which no doubt Georgia Power made difficult.”
Kohn said Hobby, 55, still wants to work for Georgia Power and plans to return when the company contacts him.
In 1995, Georgia Power agreed to an out-of-court settlement with another nuclear plant employee who was fired after raising concerns about the Waynesboro plant. Allen Mosbaugh was fired in 1990 after alleging that Georgia Power supplied false safety information to federal regulators.
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