A group of former Baltimore Gas and Electric workers says the utility aims to silence their efforts to disclose problems with gas pipeline inspections by seeking to hold them in contempt of court.

BGE filed a contempt motion against whistleblowers and their attorneys in Baltimore City Circuit Court after they brought safety concerns to state regulators, an attorney for the former workers said Tuesday.

That “suggests an organization more focused on silencing criticism than addressing legitimate safety concerns,” David Manuel Baña, an attorney for the former workers, said in a statement. The utility “has chosen to maintain a path of intimidation that serves to discourage others from reporting critical safety issues in the future.”

BGE and parent company Exelon counter that the former employees and their attorneys have ignored court warnings and orders that prohibit public discussions and social media posts that could significantly influence ongoing litigation.

When they raised concerns that a BGE employee had failed to properly inspect gas pipelines and filed false reports, workers and their attorneys improperly shared information that should have been restricted to court proceedings for pending litigation, the utility said in a motion filing.

That information included deposition transcripts, a link to a video deposition and public posts on Facebook by Baña’s wife, attorney Tonya Baña, “that draw inappropriate conclusions about BGE,” the filing said. Baña said his wife shared information about BGE’s rate increases and pipeline inspection concerns.

Through a spokesman, BGE declined to comment because a lawsuit is pending in Circuit Court.

A hearing on BGE’s contempt motion is scheduled for June 3.

Baña and the former workers asked the court to dismiss the motion under Maryland’s Anti-SLAPP statute, which is designed to protect people from retaliatory lawsuits when they engage in lawful speech or petitioning.

The contempt motion is part of a case initially filed in 2021. Former BGE workers are suing the utility for allegedly perpetuating a deep-seated culture of racism where African American employees regularly endured racial slurs, discrimination and at least one instructor who tied nooses in front of them. The plaintiffs are accusing BGE and Exelon of enabling a workplace where supervisors overlooked Black employees or candidates for positions they were qualified for and ignored or downplayed racism.

In court filings, the workers called the contempt motion “a blatant attempt to punish Plaintiffs and Plaintiffs’ counsel simply for exercising their rights to publicly expose BGE’s discriminatory, dishonest, and unsafe business practices.”

Concerns about BGE’s gas inspections were raised in December when a group of 14 former BGE employees accused the utility of mismanaging pipeline safety contract work. Those allegations, filed with the Maryland Public Service Commission, were part of the former employees’ petition to intervene in a BGE rate-setting case before the commission, in which they argued consumers should not bear rate increases tied to mismanaged projects.

Earlier this month, the PSC said it plans to look into the gas pipeline concerns. Commissioners opened a new case to investigate the PSC’s engineering division’s April findings of gaps in BGE’s gas system safety inspection program. That engineering report found gaps in compliance oversight, quality assurance of work and verification of gas distribution system records.

It said an “acknowledged pattern of falsification of records suggests a non-trivial violation of inspection integrity and safety protocols, increasing the potential for risks to the gas distribution system and public safety.”

BGE had said in a state filing that it fired a former employee last year for failing to inspect assigned crews on multiple occasions and complete performance reports on company contractors. BGE said that on numerous occasions the inspector made stops on company time at a private marina where he kept a boat, instead of completing assigned work, and that he falsified time sheets and payroll records.

But the utility has disputed the PSC engineering division’s conclusion that the unacceptable job performance of a single former BGE worker jeopardized the safety of the gas pipeline system. A BGE spokesman has told The Sun that the former employee in question was not responsible for safety inspections.

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