State pays $450,000 to settle employee’s claim

By David Ammons

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Washington state officials will pay a former fraud investigator $450,000 to settle his claim that the attorney general’s office retaliated against him for uncovering abuses that led to huge verdicts against the state.

Rather than go to trial in U.S. District Court in Tacoma in March, the state will settle out of court with Karl Perrick, said Gary Larson, spokesman for Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

"This was a simple business decision on the part of the office, not any admission on any of Mr. Perrick’s claims," Larson said Wednesday. "We’re not pleased with this outcome, but employment cases are risky to take to trial."

But Perrick’s attorney, David P. Moody, called it "an extraordinary settlement," probably the largest ever won by an employee of the agency. He said it showed Gregoire’s office knew it was vulnerable to a huge settlement if the case went to trial.

"The attorney general doesn’t agree to pay someone almost a half-million dollars if there isn’t any wrongdoing," he said in an interview.

Perrick, 60, was an investigator for nine years, documenting problems with the Department of Social and Health Services in its care of vulnerable clients.

He was the lead investigator who looked into claims that DSHS negligently licensed a Bremerton group home where three developmentally disabled men were physically and sexually abused. Last year, a jury awarded $17.8 million to the three. Perrick testified in that case.

At the time, it was the largest civil judgment against the state. Gregoire’s office missed the appeal deadline by 10 days, and the state Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court ordered the state to pay up.

Perrick also investigated the Linda David case in Snohomish County. Last year, the state agreed to pay $8.8 million to David, who was beaten by her husband — also her state-paid caretaker — for more than a decade and left permanently disabled. That payment is the largest to a single individual by the state.

Perrick also investigated a Spokane case. Altogether, clients won $30 million in claims against the state, Moody said.

Instead of spurring the state to "take care of the underlying problem," officials decided to get rid of "the man who brought the problems to light," Moody said. He likened Perrick to a whistleblower.

Perrick, 60, who had been working out of his Whidbey Island home, said Gregoire’s office retaliated by ordering him to report to a Tacoma office every day. Moody said that turned out to be a commute of three hours each way and made it difficult to do his job, which took him to all corners of the state.

Eventually he resigned and filed a civil rights lawsuit.

"The settlement will allow Mr. Perrick to get on with his life," Moody said.

Perrick has been selling woodstoves, he said.

Larson said there was "absolutely no retaliation," and that ending Perrick’s telecommuting was necessary "so we could have better oversight over the work he was doing. It was determined that the work wasn’t getting done and so his privileges were terminated."

Larson said the settlement, reached in mediation, was approved by the state’s risk-management office, which will pay the money.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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