» 2009 » April Ms Sparky

Task Force SAFE still making a difference

April 30, 2009 — Ms Sparky

Oshkosh man helps inspect potential electrical problems in Iraq

By Doug Zellmer, The Northwestern April 30, 2009

An Oshkosh man is in Iraq to help inspect electrical installations in military buildings that could potentially be death traps for U.S. soldiers.

Dan Schneider, a master electrician, is working as a civilian contractor in the Forward Operating Base in Kalsu, located about 30 miles south of Baghdad. He is assigned to Task Force SAFE — Safe Actions for Fire and Electricity.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth was electrocuted in his shower in Iraq on Jan. 2, 2008 and is one of at least three soldiers killed while showering since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Scores of soldiers suffered shocks between September 2006 and July 2008, according to a database maintained by KBR Inc., the Houston-Based contractor that oversees maintenance at most U.S. facilities in Iraq. About one third of all inspections so far in Iraq have turned up major electrical problems, according to interviews and an internal military document obtained by The Associated Press.

Schneider said he’s been in Iraq since October and expects to stay at least through around mid-September. His group has inspected more than 2,500 structures for electrical and fire hazards. Those include guard towers, administrative buildings and medical clinics.

“Anything with electricity and we’re going to inspect it,” he said.

Faulty electrical grounding is among the most common problems found, the task force reported.

“Everyday we find something that could possibly cause an electrocution,” said Schneider, 59. “We’re finding that a lot of the stuff is installed by British standards, which are different than in the United States. They use different grounding systems than we use in the states and that is part of the problem.”

Schneider said he’s part of one of 30 teams of electrical and fire inspectors that are dispersed throughout Iraq. He said the 30 teams have more than 100,000 military facilities to inspect.

“It’s been an adventure. When I first came over here the money was the big incentive, but once you get here and see what’s here and what you do to hopefully improve the situation it becomes more about the mission than the money,” Schneider said. (click HERE for the original article)

Posted in Electrocutions/Shocks, Stanley Baker Hill (SBH), Task Force SAFE. Tags: Electrocutions/Shocks, SBH. 4 Comments »

KBR victim fights to make secret arbitration illegal

April 30, 2009 — Ms Sparky

Alleged rape victim sues for right to sue

By HAILEY R. BRANSON Houston Chronicle – April 30, 2009

WASHINGTON — Nearly four years after Texan Jamie Leigh Jones was allegedly raped by co-workers while working for a Halliburton Corp. subsidiary in Iraq, she came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to fight against “hidden” contract clauses that take away employees’ right to trial.

Jones endorsed a proposal by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., called the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009, which would prevent pre-dispute mandatory consumer, employment and franchise arbitration agreements that take away the right to take a case to court. Supporters claim that private arbitration gives unfair advantage to large companies.

Jones, a former Conroe, Texas, resident who now lives in Houston, says she was drugged and raped by numerous co-workers in Baghdad’s Camp Hope while working for subsidiary KBR, which has now split from Halliburton, in July 2005. She was 20.

Jones’ case has not yet come to trial. Halliburton attorneys said last year that Jones’ employment contract she signed before taking her job states that claims by employees have to be settled in private arbitration.

Last year, a Texas judge issued an order allowing her to present her case in court.

“Unfortunately, my case is not an isolated incident,” she said Tuesday. “With the misuse of arbitration, we have made corporate entities in this country above the law.”

Since returning to the United States, Jones has made it her mission to fight for the protection of citizens who work overseas.

In 2007, she established the Jamie Leigh Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organization that gives advice to U.S. citizens and legal residents who become crime victims while working abroad for government contractors and subcontractors. She also testified before Congress about her experience in Iraq.

Jones says that if she “never gets justice,” she at least will have been “a voice for others” who have been victimized by rape and arbitration laws.

While she has fought in court and on Capitol Hill, she has tried to do what she says has been hardest — moving forward with her personal life.

“I had a lot of healing to do,” she said. “The attack changed the path of my life.”

Jones is finishing a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from American Military University and recently moved back to Houston after living in California for several years.

She also has gotten married, to naval officer Joseph Daigle. The couple wed in 2006. Seven months ago, she gave birth to their first child, Lily Poetry Daigle.

“She’s the light of my life,” Jones said. “I want to keep pressing on so my baby never has to face anything like I did.”

Lily was named after Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, who, after a call from Jones’ father, contacted the State Department while Jones was in Iraq, prompting the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to help Jones leave Iraq.

Jones’ lawyer, Todd Kelly, said the Texas woman has been able “to get on with her life in large part due to taking on this cause and helping other victims.”

“Not every woman has the courage to make such matters public,” Rep. Johnson, the legislation’s author, said of Jones. “She did — and not just for her, but for others as well.” (click HERE for original article)

Posted in LOGCAP III - KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR. Tags: Charles Boartz, Employee Issues-KBR, Jamie Leigh Jones, Lawsuits Against KBR, Pete Arroyo. 2 Comments »

Nine new lawsuits filed against KBR

April 28, 2009 — Ms Sparky

Burn Pit Abu Ghraib

WASHINGTON, April 28 /PRNewswire/ — Nine new lawsuits allege that KBR, Inc. jeopardized the health and safety of American soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by burning vast quantities of unsorted waste in enormous open-air burn pits with no safety controls.

The lawsuits are being filed today and Wednesday in state courts in Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, and Wyoming by the Burke O’Neil LLC law firm and co-counsel on behalf of 21 named current and former military personnel, private contractors, and the families of men who allegedly died as a result of exposure to toxic emissions from KBR burn pits.

KBR is accused of allowing thick, noxious smoke – coming off of flames sometimes colored blue or green by burning chemicals – to hang over U.S. bases and camps across Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004. Round-the-clock hazardous emissions from the burn pits allegedly caused serious respiratory illnesses, tumors and cancers in the plaintiffs. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Burn Pits, Lawsuits Against KBR. Tags: Burn Pits, Lawsuits Against KBR. 20 Comments »

KBR’s President Should Have Just Kept Quiet

April 28, 2009 — Ms Sparky

It appears interim president for KBR’s Government & Infrastructure William C Bodie should have just kept his mouth shut. But “on no” he, with the help of his attorney’s I suspect, chose to defend KBR’s actions and influence any potential juror in the SSG Ryan Maseth wrongful death civil suit by publishing an editorial in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. If you would like to refer to my post with Bodie’s editorial click HERE. It also has a link to the original editorial that Bodie was responding to. Personal message to Bodie….”It’s time to fire the overpaid attorney’s who advised you to publish an editorial in the local newspaper! What’s next for KBR? A “teary eyed” live interview on Jerry Springer? Oh boo hoo!”

Lawyers try to force Army contractor exec to be deposed in suit

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An executive of an Army contractor that has been sued for wrongful death in federal court can’t have it both ways, say attorneys seeking to compel his deposition.

He can’t assert on a newspaper editorial page that his company — KBR — had nothing to do with the electrocution death of a soldier in the shower in Iraq, and then claim he has no knowledge of the incident.

Attorneys who represent the parents of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth filed a motion in federal court yesterday asking a judge to order William C. Bodie, KBR interim president for government and infrastructure, to testify in the case.

Mr. Bodie wrote a rebuttal piece in the Post-Gazette earlier this month, claiming that KBR had nothing to do with Sgt. Maseth’s death at Radwaniyah Palace in Baghdad.

Sgt. Maseth, an Army Ranger and Green Beret, died on Jan. 2, 2008, when the electricity in the shower facility short-circuited because an electric water pump on the rooftop was not properly grounded.

The lawsuit filed by Cheryl A. Harris and Douglas Maseth alleges that their son died because KBR failed to maintain the electrical infrastructure at the former estate of Saddam Hussein.

In a piece that ran April 17, Mr. Bodie wrote, “Sgt. Maseth’s accidental electrocution was an unfortunate and tragic event, but it was not caused by KBR. KBR worked quickly to remediate problems when authorized to do the work.”

But attorneys representing Staff Sgt. Maseth’s parents believe that the writing of that letter shows that Mr. Bodie must have some knowledge of the event, and therefore he should be deposed.

KBR attorneys have said they would not produce Mr. Bodie, calling him in an e-mail to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, a “high level executive [who] would not appear to have any first-hand knowledge of any fact or issue that is relevant to this case.”

Patrick Cavanaugh, who represents Sgt. Maseth’s parents, disagreed.

“This statement of counsel flies in the face of Mr. Bodie’s own words in his letter where he takes positions on the contractual responsibility and the wiring of Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth’s building and states definitively that KBR is aware of no fact showing that KBR is responsible for Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth’s death,” he wrote.

KBR’s attorney, Joseph L. Luciana III, did not return a phone call seeking comment. However, in an e-mail to Mr. Cavanaugh, he wrote that Mr. Bodie’s letter was simply a response to a Post-Gazette editorial. Further, Mr. Bodie said the wiring at issue was installed by the Iraqis and was not the responsibility of KBR to repair or replace.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer ruled that the lawsuit against KBR can move forward. The civilian contractor claimed that the issues raised by the complaint could not be heard in federal court because they would force the judge to question military decisions.

Judge Fischer, however, said that was not the case, ruling that the lawsuit does not revolve around any military combat operations. Rather, she wrote, it turns on whether KBR was negligent in maintaining the infrastructure at the former palace complex where Sgt. Maseth died.

KBR attorneys have asked the judge for permission to appeal her ruling to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before the case continues. (click HERE to read the original article)

Ms Sparky

Posted in Bodie Babble, Electrocutions/Shocks, Lawsuits Against KBR, Ryan Maseth-US Army. Tags: Cheryl Harris, Electrocutions/Shocks, Lawsuits Against KBR. 3 Comments »

Appeal heard in rape case against Halliburton, KBR

April 28, 2009 — Ms Sparky

Note: Just an FYI. General Order 1 did not apply in the Green Zone. It WAS legal to for KBR employees to drink during non work hours until sometime in 2005. We actually had MWR parties where KBR supplied the alcohol.

Appeal heard in rape case against Halliburton, KBR

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press
April 27, 2009, 2:58PM

NEW ORLEANS — A Texas woman who claims she was raped by co-workers while working for a military contractor in Iraq asked a federal appeals court Monday to let a jury hear part of her case.

A judge ruled last year that some of Jamie Leigh Jones’ claims against Halliburton Co. and several former subsidiaries can be tried in open court, but the companies say she signed an agreement that requires all of her claims against the companies to be resolved privately through arbitration.

A three-judge panel that heard the companies’ appeal Monday didn’t immediately rule.

Jones, a Kellogg Brown & Root employee who was a clerical worker at a Halliburton office in Baghdad’s “Green Zone,” claims she was drugged and “gang-raped” by several Halliburton firefighters in her company barracks bedroom after they had been drinking.

Jones also claims she was placed under armed guard and held in a “prison-like container” for hours after she reported the alleged rape. KBR and Halliburton, which split in 2007, have disputed Jones’ account of how the companies responded to her allegations.

The Associated Press usually does not identify people alleging sexual assault, but Jones’ face and name have been broadcast in media reports and on her own Web site. She also described her allegations in testimony before a congressional subcommittee.

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ordered Jones to arbitrate some of her claims, including fraud, negligence and sexual harassment. But he ruled that her claims of assault and battery, emotional distress and false imprisonment fall outside the scope of her employment agreement. Ellison ruled that Jones can’t pursue the latter claims before the others are arbitrated.

Carl Jordan, a lawyer for the companies, argued that all of Jones’ claims are subject to binding arbitration under Halliburton’s “dispute resolution program.”

“The arbitration clause in this case is quite broad,” he said.

John Vail, one of Jones’ lawyers, said the employment agreement his client signed doesn’t govern any claims stemming from her alleged rape.

“And a rape in her bedroom did not occur in the workplace,” he added.

Alcohol was banned in “non-workplace” areas of Camp Hope in Iraq after Jones’ alleged rape, according to Vail.

“That is very powerful evidence that this was not in the workplace,” he said. (Click HERE to read the original article)