The prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has added a new attorney to its defense team in a racial discrimination case brought by an employee who claims he was unfairly passed over for promotion.
With a new trial date and new federal magistrate judge in place, the addition of Michael DePonte, chief litigator for the Dallas office of the Jackson Lewis law firm, is one of many developments recently in a case brought by Eddie Thomas against Nuclear Waste Partnership. The contractor is a team made up of Amentum and BWX Technologies.
Thomas filed suit against the management contractor in 2021, saying he was the only African American in the security division at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in May 2020 when he was skipped over for promotion because of his race. In its legal responses, the contractor said Thomas lacked the necessary level of security clearance when he applied for the promotion.
After being added to the contractor’s legal team Dec. 29, DePonte filed various discovery responses with the U.S. District Court for New Mexico over the past month in the case now set for jury selection and trial the week of May 8.
DePonte filed January notices regarding depositions with the court and Thomas’s lawyers, Dick Blenden and Roxanne Lara, both based in Carlsbad, N.M.
On Dec. 28, the pretrial responsibility for the case was transferred to U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Fouratt from Magistrate Judge Stephan Vidmar as ordered by presiding U.S. District Judge James Browning.
Before the change in magistrates, the court had delayed the trial from Jan. 8 until this spring. Jury selection is now scheduled for May 8.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is the nation’s only deep underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste. In less than two weeks, Nuclear Waste Partnership will pass responsibility for the site over to a Bechtel affiliate.
