AUBURN - A jury awarded $84,000 in back pay and damages to a New Gloucester electrician who blew the whistle in 2004 on work at Saddleback Ski Area done by unlicensed employees.

Robert Duggan Jr., 37, said Wednesday "it's been a nightmare" and he's glad it's over.

An Androscoggin County Superior Court jury awarded Duggan $2,000 in lost wages and $40,000 for his pain, suffering and mental anguish from Saddleback Inc. and the same amounts from Sargent & Sons Builders, the general contractor on the job.

Duggan worked for Farmington-based Integrity Electrical Installation and Service Inc. on a renovation of the ski lodge. Under new ownership, the Rangeley ski resort undertook a $20 million project that also included new ski lifts, trails and snowmaking equipment.

Duggan, a journeyman electrician working as a foreman for Integrity, said he was fired because he expressed concern over work that violated state electrical codes performed by unlicensed workers employed both by Saddleback and a Michigan company contracted to install snowmaking equipment on the mountain.

He reported the work, which he said was potentially dangerous, to his immediate boss and to the manager at Saddleback and, eventually, to a state electrical inspector.

His lawyer, Rebecca Webber of Auburn, sought to prove that both the ski area and the general contractor pressured Duggan's bosses to fire him.

The jury agreed after roughly an hour's deliberation on Wednesday afternoon, about three days after the trial started.

Steven Langsdorf, the lawyer for Saddleback, argued that it was Integrity that sought to reassign Duggan after he confronted other workers on the project at a bar one night and insulted them.

Though Sargent and Sons was upset with Duggan and reportedly told Duggan's boss, "You've got to get rid of him," Langsdorf said there was "no evidence at all that anyone at Saddleback told him or communicated that."

Langsdorf said he and his client were "surprised and disappointed" by the verdict. "We thought the evidence was clear that all employment decisions about Mr. Duggan were made by his employer, Integrity Electric."

He said Saddleback would consider appealing the decision.

Sargent defaulted and declined to challenge the complaint at trial.

For his part, Duggan said he had tried to work out the problem with his boss at the time, then with his union. He later presented his case to the Maine Human Rights Commission, which sided with him. After resisting hiring a lawyer for himself for two years, he finally did when the burden of the legal case overwhelmed him.

Four years later, he's glad he got help.

"If you can imagine yourself seeing someone, an arsonist, dumping gasoline on a building and lighting it on fire," he said. "You call the police station and you call the fire department. The police never show up. The arsonist walks away. The house burns to the ground. Years later the police show up and say, 'Where's the arsonist?' 'What fire?' That's what it's felt like the last four years."

Duggan said he knows he did the right thing even though his protests didn't shut down the project.

His faith in the system was restored Wednesday. "I believed the jury would see through this," he said. "And they did."

It's not over yet.

Justice Joyce Wheeler is expected to rule on other counts brought by the Maine Human Rights Commission and Duggan. She will decide whether Integrity discriminated against Duggan in violation of the Whistleblowers Protection Act and the Maine Human Rights Act. She also is expected to decide whether Saddleback coerced or compelled Integrity because Duggan blew the whistle.