CHARLESTON – West Virginia Advocates, doing business as Disability Rights of West Virginia, has filed a suit against the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources-Bureau for Children and Families seeking declaratory judgment regarding access to records.
DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch and DHHR Commissioner Linda Watts were also named as defendants in the suit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.
Disability Rights of West Virginia claims the defendants refused to comply with their statutory duty to provide it with access to Adult Protective Services records. The suit states the plaintiff met with the defendants' attorney in November 2018 to discuss its request for access to all records for a six-month period in 2018 and it was denied. The suit states the parties later agreed to a subset of the requested records, but the plaintiff alleges the records they were provided were not complete.
DRWV is seeking an order for access to the records and litigation costs. It is represented by Jason Parmer of Disability Rights of West Virginia in Charleston.
The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 19-C-614