HUNTINGTON — More than two years after an eighth-grade trip was canceled for middle school students, Cabell County Board of Education is suing an Ona-based travel company that has not returned funds collected for the trip.
Eric A. Morrison and E.T. Advisor Services were named as defendants in the suit.
The Cabell County Board of Education claims the defendants collected $136,500 from Barboursville and Milton Middle School families during the 2019-2020 school year and then refused to return the funds when the trip was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a complaint filed Sept. 22 in Cabell Circuit Court.
The board claims approximately 150 families are owed refunds of between $775 and $1,199 each from the defendants. Students were supposed to attend an eighth-grade trip to Washington, D.C., in May 2020. But when the school canceled the trip, the travel company was supposed to return the payments to the families.
The defendants were unjustly enriched at the parents' expense and their actions constituted civil theft and fraud, according to the suit.
"We recognize the burden our families have had to bear because this contractor has refused to reimburse them,” Dr. Ryan Saxe, Superintendent of Cabell County Schools, told WSAZ. "Our main goal in filing the lawsuit is to assist these families now by helping them get their money back. We are compelled to help right this wrong placed upon our children and their families."
Cabell County Board of Education President Rhonda Smalley told WCHS that the defendants refused to return the funds.
"The travel company has refused to return the funds our students and parents worked so incredibly hard to raise," Smalley said. "When it became obvious that the trips were not going to occur, our schools withheld a fifth installment payment families had made and were able to return those funds."
The school board is seeking compensatory damages for the parents. It is represented by Thomas P. Boggs of Duffield, Lovejoy and Boggs in Huntington.