JPL Lawsuit: Laid-Off Worker Calls Appeal a 'Sham'

The former systems administrator suing JPL for religious discrimination testified Tuesday that he felt his appeal to a human resources investigation that found him to be harassing colleagues was a sham.

“I felt a grave injustice had been done to me,’’ said, David Coppedge, who filed a lawsuit for wrongful demotion in 2010. He was laid off the following year. 

Defense attorney Jim Zapp is expected to cross examine Coppedge this afternoon. 

Coppedge, who's been testifying under direct examination since last Wednesday, believes his views on intelligent design led to his demotion and termination. Intelligent design is the theory that life is too complex to have developed solely through evolution, and that the universe was designed by an intelligent entity.

The Santa Clarita resident, who turns 61 Wednesday, maintains he was fired in retaliation nine months after suing JPL in Los Angeles Superior Court in April 2010.

JPL contends that supervisors received numerous complaints about Coppedge, both about his alleged harassment of co-workers regarding his "pushy'' viewpoints on religion and politics, and a lack of flexibility with colleagues. Coppedge was an information technology specialist and system administrator on JPL's Cassini mission to Saturn.

At JPL, he told Judge Ernest Hiroshige, who is hearing the non-jury trial of Coppedge's case, he made about $125,500 annually. Since then, he's found only sporadic work.  

Since the trial began, the court has had to delay proceedings several times due to what Coppedge has described as debilitating headaches. His testimony often becomes meandering, with his own attorney, William Becker, directing him back to the question at hand. 

Coppedge discussed what he found to be an inadequate appeal to JPL's findings that he was harassing colleagues at work about Christianity. JPL further found his interactions with some co-workers to be at times argumentative about intelligent design and creationism. He did not deem an appeal that followed the human resources investigation an official appellate proess, but rather a "discussion.''

Further, it wasn't until after he filed a lawsuit, claiming among other things,  JPL infringed upon his freedom of religion that Coppedge discovered who his accusers were - nor what they said their specific grievances were, he said.