United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit: YADAV v. L-3 COMMUNICATIONS CORP.

YADAV v. L-3 COMMUNICATIONS CORP.

AVINASH YADAV, PETITIONER,

v.

L-3 COMMUNICATIONS CORP.; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, RESPONDENTS.

No. 10-3249.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

February 13, 2012.

BEFORE: BATCHELDER, Chief Judge; COLE and COOK, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

COLE, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner Avinash Yadav filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor alleging that he was terminated by Respondent L-3 Communications Corporation, Inc. ("L-3") in retaliation for bringing to the company's attention the suspected noncompliance of a development project with regulations set by the Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA"), in violation of the "whistleblower" provision of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, 49 U.S.C. § 42121 ("AIR 21"). An administrative law judge dismissed the complaint, finding that L-3 showed by clear and convincing evidence that it would have terminated Yadav absent any protected activity. The Department of Labor Administrative Review Board ("ARB") affirmed. We DENY the petition for review.

I. BACKGROUND

Ten months into his tenure as Manager, Engineering—Validation & Verification ("V&V Manager") at L-3's avionics division, Yadav decided to break his silence as to an engineering practice that had troubled him from the start. As his primary responsibility, Yadav oversaw L-3's development of and compliance with the engineering requirements for "SmartDeck," an airplane navigation system. Yadav came to believe that, instead of first planning, designing, and then building SmartDeck, L-3 seemed to "reverse engineer" the product. Through this technique, L-3 assessed product quality by starting with a fully manufactured product, breaking it down, testing it for errors, and then exploring ways to improve it.

For most of his time at L-3, Yadav reported to Wendy Ljungren, the Vice President of Engineering for the avionics division. Ljungren reported to the division president, Adrienne Stevens. In mid-August, during one of Yadav's weekly meetings with Ljungren, Yadav voiced his reservations about the SmartDeck project. On August 26, 2005, he memorialized these concerns in a memorandum to Ljungren ("the August 26 Memo"), in which Yadav opined that the process that L-3 actually used to develop SmartDeck's software differed so drastically from the process it reported using to the FAA that it violated FAA regulations. Yadav further described L-3's chosen development process as so "corrupt" that he found it virtually impossible to perform his V&V duties.

Read more: http://www.leagle.com