WINFIELD – A former Goodwill employee accuses the company of not paying him overtime and wrongfully terminating him as well as bilking a state contract.
Darrell Price filed his complaint March 3 in Putnam Circuit Court against Goodwill Industries of Kanawha Valley Inc.
According to the complaint, Price began working for Goodwill on July 30, 2019. He says he was retired from Union Boiler Construction and wasn’t seeking employment, but Goodwill found an old copy of his CV on an online employment website.
He was hired by Goodwill to manage and oversee two rest areas along Interstate 64 near Hurricane. Goodwill contracts with the state to provide cleaning services and upkeep to I-64 rest areas. Goodwill has other contracts with the state and other private companies to provide cleaning and upkeep services.
Price’s duties included stocking the rest areas with necessary items such as paper towels and soap as well as cleaning the facilities, maintenance work, ensuring the outdoors areas were maintained and overseeing a revolving staff of about 12 workers. He had a 40-hour work week and was to receive overtime for any hours in excess of 40.
Soon after he was hired, Price says he “noticed significant issues” with how corporate managers conducted business as well as how the company was being ran.
“For example, very early in his employment, plaintiff noticed that his supervisor Joyce Birley would order employees that were under plaintiff’s supervision at the rest areas (and thus working under a contract with the State of West Virginia) to report to separate locations wherein defendant Goodwill had contracts with private corporations to provide cleaning services,” the complaint states. “One of the earliest and most blatant examples of Joyce Birley and plaintiff’s supervisors pulling employees from the rest area and assigning them to work at the Drug Emporium while said employees were being paid by the State of West Virginia to clean and maintain rest areas.”
When Price reported his concerns to Birley, he says she blew it off. So he reported it to Goodwill Vice President of Human Resources Brett Barker, saying it was dishonest and that “people could go to jail for this kind of stuff.”
Price says he also told Goodwill Charleston CEO Dan Owens, who agreed and assured Price the conduct would stop immediately. And he says it did stop – or was hidden from him – for a while. But when it happened again, Price says he continued reporting it to his supervisors and threatened to alert state revenue supervisors.
Price says another issue that raised a red flag for him was items such as toilet paper and cleaning supplies belonging to the state Department of Highways that was stored at rest areas being transferred for use at non-state contract work sites such as the Putnam County Chamber of Commerce. He says he also was told this conduct was stop when he first reported it, but it continued.
He says he also lodged complaints about himself and other employees being forced to alter their time cards to avoid paying overtime. As his whistle-blowing continued and intensified, Price says he was treated harshly and negatively. He says supervisors began messing with his schedule, forcing him to work “seemingly impossible schedules” and requiring unnecessary and time-consuming reports that never had been required before.
He says one supervisor even told him it would be “quicker and easier if you just quit.” The poor treatment continued until March 18, 2022, when Price says he was terminated with “wholly unjustified reasons.”
Price accuses the defendant of violating the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act for failure to pay overtime and failure to reimburse, breach of contract, violation of the West Virginia Whistle Blower Act, wrongful termination and violation of substantial public policy.
He seeks compensatory damages for overtime losses, reimbursement of mileage, emotional distress, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
Price is being represented by W. Michael Frazier and Michael Dru Frazier of Frazier & Oxley in Huntington.
Putnam Circuit Court case number 23-C-25