Coppedge Loses Discrimination Suit

The judge has finally ruled in the David Coppedge wrongful termination suit and it did not go Coppedge's way.  Brian Charles of the Pasadena Star-News writes:

JPL officials applauded Hiroshige's decision.

"We are very pleased with the decision reached by the court," JPL officials said in a statement Thursday. "As we've stated from the beginning, the allegations raised by Mr. Coppedge were without merit. After weighing the evidence in this case, the court has agreed."

During the civil trial, attorneys for JPL painted Coppedge as a difficult employee who pushed his views upon his co- workers. JPL said Coppedge's layoff was in line with agency policy.

The court agreed.

"The evidence shows that Caltech has a detailed layoff policy, incorporating a layoff ranking process, which (Coppedge's supervisor) carried out. The evidence clearly shows that (Coppedge's co- workers) were more qualified than Coppedge regarding the skills needed on the project going forward, such as SCO/ ITL, web servers, and Linux, and that Coppedge had a history of poor customer relationships, particularly in comparison to the other System Administrators," the judgement said.

I expected this result and am sorry that he lost his job but it looks like, again, the Discovery Institute backed the wrong horse.