A Whistleblower's Weight Of Knowing Too Much

Wrongful death lawsuit says former compliance employee's suicide was "unavoidable" because of Boeing's tactics

Last week, the family of John Barnett—the Boeing whistleblower who committed suicide just over a year ago—filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Boeing in federal court.

One of the reasons this lawsuit is notable is that it calls into question the culpability of employers in the declining mental health of employees who they retaliate against or isolate. As the filing states: “Boeing may not have pulled the trigger, but Boeing’s conduct was the clear cause, and the clear foreseeable, cause of John’s death.”

The general public have finally become aware in the last few years what insiders have known for a while: that airline manufacturers and the web of companies providing parts for their supply chain are speeding through compliance and safety processes. In doing so, they are putting the unwitting public—who until recently thought that commercial air travel was probabilistically very safe—in danger.

One of Barnett’s lawyers, Brian Knowles, tells me that Barnett carried this knowledge like a “tremendous weight.” Knowles also represented Spirit Aerosystems compliance workers Santiago Paredes and Joshua Dean, who suspiciously fell ill to a bacterial infection and died shortly after Barnett.

Knowles adds that “Boeing has acted with impunity for too long” and that their “culture of concealment” needs to change.

A key piece of that might be changing up the psychology and ethos that incentivizes leaders and managers to actually punish compliance people for being too compliant or not enough compliant, depending on how you look at it. Knowles couldn’t share whether the specific managers or others who retaliated against Barnett were still at Boeing (citing a confidentiality order). But I would wager that at least some of the people involved in deflecting Barnett’s case—lawyers, human resources, engineers, business leaders—are still at the company or working with it in some capacity.

I spoke to Kelly Stonelake, a 15-year veteran Meta employee who recently sued the company for discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation after raising concerns about the company’s products having racist and misogynist tones. She shared the mental health challenges that she faced in having her reality constantly questioned: “as leader after leader ignored, invalidated, or retaliated, I began to question my own sense until I began experiencing an intense and persistent urge to end my life.”

Although she and Barnett were in different industries, it was a similar system and set of incentives they were running up against: “When regulated corporations under tremendous pressure are led by executives whose compensation is based on smooth sailing, perception skews and safety issues are perceived as risks to the corporation before they’re seen as risks to it’s customers,” says Stonelake. “This pushes the problem to employees where they must choose between their paycheck and strangers’ safety.”

Knowles told me that with this lawsuit, they are seeking justice and accountability for John Barnett and his family. And in general, it will be interesting to see how the courts weigh personal responsibility over one’s mental well-being and an employer’s role in pushing someone to the brink of their emotional and physical limits. Perhaps if courts begin to see certain tactics of isolation and retaliation as acts of physical violence, things could change.

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