A state agency is demanding a trial by jury when it meets a Mount Carmel man in federal court this spring.
Attorneys for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) made the request Thursday, one day after Chief Judge Yvette Kane, U.S. Middle District Court, set April 19 as the day for a trial of Steve Bartos' federal whistle-blower lawsuit to begin.
Pretrial memoranda are due March 26. A pretrial and settlement conference is set for 2 p.m. April 4. Assuming no settlement is reached, trial briefs are due April 13 ahead of jury selection at 9:30 a.m. April 19 at the district's Harrisburg courthouse.
Previous court filings estimate the trial to last between seven and 10 days.
Bartos is represented by attorney Frank P. Clark of Clark and Krevsky LLC, Camp Hill. DEP and agency employee Kenneth R. Reisinger are represented by Meredith Kirschner of the Philadelphia law firm Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires and Newby LLC.
Bartos filed suit in 2008 and claims to have been fired from DEP in retaliation for discovering the alleged misappropriation of millions of dollars in recycling funding.
A disciplinary letter from the State Civil Service Commission said Bartos had been fired from DEP for misconduct.
The original lawsuit has since been trimmed through motions to dismiss by the defendants and upheld by the court. What remains, however, is Bartos' First Amendment retaliation claim against Reisinger, acting deputy secretary for waste, air and radiation management and former director of the Bureau of Waste Management, and Bartos' state whistle-blower statute claims against both Reisinger and DEP.
Bartos is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages along with attorneys' fees. He is currently employed as city clerk of Shamokin.