SpaceX defeats firing case at trial

Jury rejects former technician’s claim of wrongful termination

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. persuaded a jury to reject a former technician’s claim he was fired for telling supervisors he thought test protocols weren’t followed and results were falsified.

Jurors in Los Angeles state court on Wednesday agreed with the rocket builder that Jason Blasdell was terminated in 2014 because of his poor job performance and not in retaliation for his taking his concern about improper testing procedures as high as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. He was seeking as much as $6 million in damages.

Blasdell sued Hawthorne-based SpaceX two years after he was fired. He had worked at the private company for more than three years, testing avionic components of Falcon 9 launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft, according to his complaint.

He claimed technicians were pressured by their managers not to follow written procedures for testing rocket parts and to report the parts had passed the tests even if the protocols hadn’t been followed. Blasdell said he pointed out the deviations from testing protocols to his supervisors, the company’s chief operating officer, and eventually to Musk.

SpaceX countered that Blasdell barraged his supervisors with rude, disrespectful and unprofessional emails about what he thought were inefficient testing and documentation procedures. He was fired because he had become disruptive and his co-workers were concerned about their safety, the company said.

“We are pleased that we were cleared of the allegations that were clearly false,” SpaceX’s lawyer, Lynne Hermle, said after the verdict.

An attorney for Blasdell, Carney Shegerian, said in his closing statement that his client isn’t the “lunatic” that he was portrayed as by SpaceX. Blasdell won the company’s “Kick Ass” award for showing initiative the year before he got fired, Shegerian said.