State’s highest court slaps down local man’s appeal

PALMER — A man acquitted in 2009 of stealing from his job with the state has seen his ensuing lawsuit denied at the state’s highest court.

William Barrickman, an equipment operator and foreman of the state’s Cascade station north of Palmer, was charged with stealing from the Department of Transportation after a probe into his brother’s theft of fuel from the department led investigators to take a look at his property.

He was charged with taking scrap metal, the kind used to hold up signs, and using it to build things in his house and then destroying it when investigators started asking questions at the department.

But Barrickman was innocent, a jury found, since the metal was scrap that employees were allowed to take it home and his supervisor had advised him to get rid of it after his brother’s deeds came to light.

Before the criminal case even made it to trial, Barrickman filed a lawsuit against the state, alleging wrongful termination.

But the state countered that Barrickman hadn’t been fired, that he had “resigned in lieu of termination” and therefore didn’t have grounds to file a lawsuit. A state superior court agreed, and now Alaska’s Supreme Court does as well.

Barrickman alleged the DOT treated him differently than other similarly situated employees, that the department acted in bad faith and that it didn’t do even a reasonable investigation before firing him.

“Barrickman provides no admissible evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to any of these contentions,” reads a Supreme Court decision released Friday.

The state contended that even if Barrickman had been told by a supervisor to get rid of the scrap metal, Barrickman never brought that up as he was going through the motions of being fired.

“If the employer makes a determination in good faith that the misconduct occurred, there is no breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, even if the employee could subsequently prove that the factual finding of misconduct was a mistake,” the court writes, citing a previous ruling.

Barrickman also pointed out that other employees took scrap metal without any ramifications.

But the court notes that Barrickman was fired for taking new metal rather than scrap metal. Though the metal likely wasn’t new is irrelevant as the state had a good reason to think Barrickman was lying when he told his supervisors it was scrap, namely that he had hastily thrown it all away.

Contact Andrew Wellner at Andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.