CLARKSBURG — A Fairmont man is suing FedEx after he claims he was wrongfully discharged from his employment with the company.
FedEx Corporate Services and FedEx Ground Package System were both named as defendants in the suit.
Daniel Skelley worked for FedEx from 2005 until 2016 as an account executive and then a sales executive, according to a complaint filed Jan. 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Skelley claims he routinely worked with business customers who shipped their packages through FedEx Ground. When he became an account executive in 2005, he took over the responsibility for a customer named Your Kentucky Tobacco Resource Inc. (YKTR).
When Skelley took over the account, he asked his supervisors about the propriety of shipping cigarettes in light of legal issues and was told that as long as FedEx complied with the tariff, shipments were acceptable, according to the suit.
Skelley claims in 2013, FedEx became involved with a series of lawsuits involving the shipment of cigarettes in New York and in August 2016, FedEx informed Skelley that the New York plaintiffs wanted to depose him for their lawsuits.
The plaintiff was instructed to meet in Pittsburgh with two FedEx Ground in house corporate lawyers, Paula Allan and Arun Thomas, according to the suit, in order to prepare him for deposition.
About five weeks later, Skelley's employment was terminated due to his talks with the corporate lawsuits during the Oct. 11, 2016, deposition preparation meeting, according to the suit.
On Nov. 22, 2016, Mo Doyle fired Skelley, with no explanation other than it had something to do with the YKTR account, according to the suit.
Skelley claims Doyle told him that Doyle could not explain the reasons for the termination because of the pending lawsuit by the New York plaintiffs.
"The only other information relating to the termination was that Mr. Doyle gave Mr. Skelley, along with a meaninglessly vague termination letter, two policies relating to 'acceptable conduct' and 'ethics,'" the complaint states. "Mr. Doyle, however, would not explain what in the policies were supposedly violated and how Mr. Skelley violated the policies."
Skelley is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, reinstatement to his former job and pre-judgment interest. He is represented by Drew M. Capuder of Capuder Fantasia; and D. Adrian Hoosier II of Hoosier Law Firm.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Clarksburg Case number: 1:19-cv-00002
