LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A former Metrolink COO contends in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was fired in retaliation for complaining that many locomotives and passenger cars in regular operation should have been refurbished decades earlier and for speaking out about insufficient funding to keep the fleet modern.<\/p>\n
“This case exposes an ongoing public safety crisis at Southern California Regional Rail Authority, the taxpayer-funded joint powers authority that owns and operates Metrolink, the commuter rail system relied upon by hundreds of thousands of Southern Californians every year,” plaintiff Donald Filippi states in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit.<\/p>\n
A Metrolink representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The suit alleges that for years, the SCRRA has operated locomotives and passenger cars that are decades past their manufacturer-recommended refurbishment dates, all while “chronically starving” its own materials program of the funding and parts needed to keep the aging fleet running safely.<\/p>\n
As a result, Metrolink trains have broken down mid-route on multiple occasions, including one occasion in which a disabled train trapped more than 400 passengers inside a darkened tunnel with high temperatures and no ventilation while a rescue locomotive pumped diesel exhaust into the enclosed space, the suit states.<\/p>\n
Filippi’s repeated warnings and his refusal to participate in alleged unsafe or unlawful conduct made him a target and another executive marginalized and eventually fired the plaintiff on June 2, telling him without explanation that the agency was going in a “different direction,” according to the suit.<\/p>\n
Filippi seeks back pay, compensatory damages, reinstatement and instructions to Metrolink management to provide training to its executives and employees regarding whistleblower retaliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A former Metrolink COO contends in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was fired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7048,3557,7053,26,7065,7057,4300,7061,7060,7054,7052,7056,7055,7066,6217,48,7068,52,51,47,50,49,7063,7062,973,7069,100,7064,2083,611,1839,4201,6220,7070,7049,7050,7051,7059,7058,7067],"class_list":["post-465247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-7048","tag-am","tag-bill-handel","tag-breaking-news","tag-broadcasting","tag-conway","tag-eaton-fire","tag-gary-shannon","tag-gary-and-shannon","tag-gary-hoffmann","tag-handel","tag-john-ken","tag-john-and-ken","tag-john-kobylt","tag-kfi","tag-la","tag-la-fires","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-radio","tag-los-angeles-talk-radio","tag-media","tag-mo-kelly","tag-news","tag-newstalk","tag-oc","tag-orange-county","tag-palisades-fire","tag-radio","tag-radio-station","tag-santa-ana-winds","tag-stay-connected","tag-stimulating","tag-talk","tag-talk-radio","tag-tim-conway","tag-wild-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}