By Noelle Crombie
oregonlive.com
SALEM, Ore. — The state on Tuesday agreed to pay a former Oregon Department of Corrections senior manager nearly $1 million to settle her claims of retaliation after she raised concerns about the treatment of two employees who later also successfully sued the agency.
The state settled the claims of Nathaline Frener for $950,000, her lawyer said. Frener served as assistant director of correctional services, a post that oversees religious programming in prisons, legal libraries, intake and assessment and release and reentry programs.
The settlement comes a year after a Marion County jury concluded the Department of Corrections retaliated against corrections employees Gina Raney-Eatherly and Merilee Nowak. In that case, the jury awarded the women a total of $2.4 million in damages.
The two cases center on the same two department leaders: Former Director Colette Peters, who now serves as director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Heidi Steward, a longtime corrections administrator who remains on the agency’s executive team.
“To my knowledge there haven’t been any consequences to (Steward) as a result of these events,” said Judy Snyder, a Lake Oswego attorney who represented Frener, as well as Raney-Eatherly and Nowak.
Frener said she was pleased with the settlement.
“I can only hope that the Department of Corrections takes this opportunity to look at their current culture of retaliation and makes the necessary changes to make the agency a welcoming and retaliation-free workplace,” she said in a statement.
Jen Black, a spokesperson for the agency, said “resolving personnel matters is often complex and difficult and reaching a settlement decision brings closure to the dispute.”
Frener cited multiple instances when she challenged the decisions of top managers.
She alleged that in 2021 Peters and Steward meddled with her efforts to rehire Raney-Eatherly.
She called out Steward in particular in her lawsuit, alleging she advised department employees to “get religion,” referring to religious exemptions from the state’s COVID vaccine policy for state workers.
In her lawsuit, Frener said she told Steward that she was uncomfortable suggesting to state workers that they circumvent the vaccine mandate by lying. She claimed the director of human resources, Gail Levario, said no questions would be asked of those who pursued religious exemptions to the vaccine and that her department would be “slow rolling” investigations into employees who did not get the vaccine or failed to complete the religious exemption so employees did not lose their jobs.
“Ms. Frener stated again she was not comfortable with the plan to circumvent the Governor’s directive,” the lawsuit states.
Then in late 2021, Frener objected when Peters told corrections staff that then-Gov. Kate Brown ordered an investigation into who had leaked Brown’s commutation plans to The Oregonian /OregonLive. Brown embraced her broad clemency power, making it a centerpiece of her administration.
The agency’s investigation included searching employee emails — an effort that turned up nothing, the lawsuit says.
Peters placed Frener on paid leave that fall, then fired her the following year, according to her lawsuit.
Snyder said the state lost a dedicated public servant in Frener.
“What DOC lost when they lost Nathaline cannot be measured in dollars,” she said. “They lost a really talented, highly educated, experienced member of the executive team.”
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