CHARLESTON – Lawmakers are questioning whether West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey should be more involved with the antitrust class action lawsuit involving the asphalt paving West Virginia’s roads costs too much due to a monopoly in the industry.
The lawsuits were filed in October on behalf of the cities of Charleston, Parkersburg, Beckley, Bluefield and Huntington.
The West Virginia Department of Transportation, as well as the Kanawha County Commission, joined the lawsuits.
Curtis Johnson, the press secretary for the Attorney General’s Office, said the AG’s office was involved in discussions with the DOT.
“Our office and the Department of Transportation are engaged in cooperative discussions to handle this matter appropriately,” Johnson said. “There is no further comment at this time.”
Mike Folio, who represents the DOT, told Metro News that he believes Morrisey wants to be involved and he should be involved in this action because he has an interest in protecting the taxpayers with this particular legal action.
Del. Marty Gearheart, chairman of Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on Department of Transportation Accountability asked the Transportation Department to prepare a narrative for the next time the committee meets to describe how and why outside counsel was selected instead of going with lawyers from the Attorney General’s office.
There were a total of seven lawsuits filed against West Virginia Paving by Charleston, Beckley, Huntington, Bluefield and Parkersburg, the West Virginia Department of Transportation-Division of Highways and the Kanawha County Commission in various circuit courts across the state. A motion to consolidate them in Kanawha County was filed in late October.
The lawsuits list West Virginia Paving Inc.; Southern West Virginia paving Inc.; Southern West Virginia Asphalt Inc.; Kelly Paving Inc.; Camden Materials LLC; American Asphalt of West Virginia LLC; American Asphalt & Aggregate Inc.; and Blacktop Industries and Equipment as defendants.
The suits allege that the defendants have been inflating prices of asphalt and creating a de facto monopoly.
The suits allege that the paving companies charged the cities and the DOH 40 percent, and sometimes more, for asphalt and paving supplies than it should have been charging.
West Virginia Paving acquired at least 15 asphalt plants that had previously competed against each other for bids in the state, according to the suits.
The lawsuits note that that West Virginia Paving has more than 80 percent of the market share in the Huntington, Charleston, Bluefield, Parkersburg and Beckley areas.
The defendants’ scheme unlawfully forced the class to pay at least 40 percent more for asphalt, inflated the defendants’ market share to over 80 percent in each class area and illegally extracted millions of dollars in overpayments from the class, according to the suits.
West Virginia Paving released a statement, calling the allegations in the lawsuits blatantly false and that the bulk of the price changes were directly related to the cost of the transportation and raw materials.
The plaintiffs represented by Benjamin L. Bailey and Michael B. Hissam of Bailey & Glasser LLP.
West Virginia Paving, Southern West Virginia Paving, Southern West Virginia Asphalt and Camden Materials are represented by former West Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Booth Goodwin.
American Asphalt and Aggregate, American Asphalt of West Virginia and Blacktop Industries and Equipment Company are acrepresented by Charles Johnstone.