Columbia is sued by former employee

A former city employee is seeking $100,000 in punitive damages from his former supervisor and the city of Columbia for “emotional pain” he said was caused by intolerable working conditions at the McBaine Water Treatment Plant.

According to a lawsuit filed June 19, Donny Bennartz, a former employee of the plant, was verbally harassed by one of his supervisors, John Betz, between 2003 and 2005. In the lawsuit, Bennartz said Betz regularly used vulgar language to intimidate and degrade him and other plant employees. In one instance, Bennartz said, Betz told him he “might wake up with a horse’s head in his bed.”

Bennartz also alleges in the suit that Betz stalked him and that he saw his supervisor sitting in a parked car outside of his house for more than 30 minutes at a time on six different occasions.

Betz said he retired from the plant in September 2005, about five months after Bennartz quit his job at the plant. Betz said he did not want to comment on any of the allegations but said Bennartz did not have any valid reason to file the lawsuit.

Two other plant employees, chief operator Ed Fisher and superintendent Floyd Turner, were named in the lawsuit as agents of the city of Columbia. Bennartz said that Fisher threw tools around the workshop while cursing loudly in three separate instances and that he was nearly hit by a pipe wrench on one such occasion.

Bennartz said that he met with Betz and Fisher’s superior, Turner, to report instances of harassment, but that Turner did nothing to “alleviate the hostile work environment.”

Neither Fisher nor Turner, who are still employed by the city, could be reached for comment.

City Counselor Fred Boeckmann said that the allegations in the lawsuit would be investigated and that the city would decide how to proceed after the facts are established.