Sent Me No Flowers: Suit Against West Virginia State Bar Dismissed

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a civil suit brought by a former longtime employee of the State Bar.

The plaintiff worked for the State Bar for over 25 years.

The issues in the litigation related to the conduct of the Executive Director of the Bar.

The plaintiff alleged that, after being hired for the position,  the Executive Director consistently criticized the past work of the office. The suit alleged that the behavior of the Executive Director drove her to early retirement at the age of 62 in 2011.

Ms. Blessing alleges that almost immediately upon becoming the Executive Director, Ms. Casey began criticizing how the State Bar was operated during the prior twenty years. Ms. Blessing alleges that Ms. Casey constantly belittled and disparaged her work performance and compensation, as well as that of three other State Bar employees, telling them they were “undereducated,” “overpaid,” and that almost everything they had done in the past was wrong. The Amended Complaint also asserts that Ms. Casey did not send flowers or other condolences after Ms. Blessing’s husband and mother died; made Ms. Blessing wade through sewage when a sewer line broke in the office; forced her to reschedule her knee surgery three times; made her work from the hospital after her knee surgery, and then refused to credit her leave time for this work; did not allow her to take the day off after herhusband died, even though she had sufficient accumulated leave time to do so; directed her to curtail her workplace conversations with State Bar members about their families  personal matters; ended the staff members’ participation in a deferred compensation program; told the staff that other people “would kill” to have their lucrative jobs; and offered no assistance to either restore a quarterly report that was deliberately deleted from Ms. Blessing’s office computer, or to determine how the deletion had occurred.

The court concluded that claims of harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress were barred by the statutes of limitations. There was insufficient evidence to support the age discrimination claim,

The West Virginia Record had this earlier report on the suit. (Mike Frisch)