Lawsuit involving Mobile Training & Education dismissed

WAYNE - A 2008 lawsuit involving Mobile Training & Education Inc. and a man who claimed the company lured him away from Verizon with false promises has been settled and dismissed.

On Feb. 13, 2009, a Notice of Removal was filed to remove the case to federal court and on March 16, 2009, a Motion to Remand the case back to Wayne Circuit Court was filed.

On May 5, 2009, federal court granted in part the Motion to Remand to Wayne Circuit Court, according to court documents.

The civil case was terminated on May 5, 2009.

In October 2006, Evan Bachrach, the vice president of MT&E, approached Jeffrey A. Lewis regarding possible employment and proposed that he resign from his position at Verizon in order to take a position with MT&E to set up technical training for telecommunications companies and to oversee other members of the sales team, according to a complaint filed Dec. 29, 2008, in Wayne Circuit Court.

Lewis claimed MT&E promised him a $90,000 salary that it did not intent to pay him and from December 2007 to March 2008, he continued to work to establish new business for MT&E, but because of the telephone companies' suspension of MT&E, and because another employee had been given the AT&T wireless business he had established, he was unable to move MT&E into any new territories.

On March 30, 2008, Lewis was advised that because he had been unable to get MT&E's suspension removed and was "unwilling to use all of his CWA contacts to remedy the situation and because of MT&E's dramatic drop in business, he was being laid off effective immediately and would receive his last pay check on March 31, 2008," the complaint states.

Lewis was represented by Jeffrey V. Mehalic of the Law Offices of Jeffrey V. Mehalic. MT&E was represented by Bryan Cokeley and J.A. Curia III of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC.

Wayne Circuit Court case number: 08-C-337

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number: 3:2009-cv-00135