The family of longtime Boeing employee John Barnett, a whistleblower who raised concerns about quality-control and safety issues in the company’s production line, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit that blames the airplane maker for his suicide.
Barnett — a quality manager who worked with the aircraft manufacturer for more than 30 years — was found dead on March 9, 2024 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a truck parked at a hotel in Charleston, S.C.
A resident of Louisiana, Barnett had been in the area for interviews with Boeing’s legal team. His death came after he participated in a formal deposition, during which he was questioned by the company’s lawyers, and then again by his own, regarding what he said was a lack of quality control and safety at the South Carolina plant.
In a newly filed lawsuit, Barnett’s family accused Boeing’s upper management of pressuring employees “to ignore and conceal defects and to not properly document aircraft build records.”
When Barnett did not oblige, management subjected him to a “concerted campaign of harassment, abuse and intimidation intended to discourage, discredit and humiliate him until he would either give up or be discredited,” according to the lawsuit filed in Charleston federal court.
“Boeing had threatened to break John and break him it did,” the documents state.
During his time at Boeing’s North Charleston plant, where he worked on the 787 Dreamliner starting in 2010, Barnett said he witnessed overworked employees installing sub-standard parts on planes in a bid to hit the company’s lofty production targets.
He also said he uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems that could result in as many as one in four masks failing to work in an emergency situation.
Barnett claimed he repeatedly discussed his concerns with Boeing leadership, but to no avail. He was ultimately transferred to another part of the facility.
In 2017, the year he retired, he filed a whistleblower complaint against Boeing, accusing them of retaliating for bringing up his concerns. He went on to details his claims in articles published by the BBC and the New York Times in 2019.
Barnett “repeatedly tried to move on with his life” in the years following, but he ultimately died by suicide after the weight of “Boeing’s harassment, abuse and humiliation became too much for John to bear,” his family said in the lawsuit.
In a suicide note he left behind and included in the suit, Barnett scrawled phrases like “I pray Boeing pays” and “Bury me face down so that Boeing and their lying leaders can kiss my a–.”
According to his family, “Boeing may not have pulled the trigger, but Boeing’s conduct was the clear cause, and the clear foreseeable cause, of John’s death.”
While the suit does not specify an exact amount of damages, his family is seeking compensation for emotional distress and mental anguish, lost earnings and life insurance benefits, and funeral and burial expenses. They have requested a jury trial.