CLARKSBURG – A former chef for a West Virginia University fraternity has sued his parent company accusing it of disability discrimination after a kitchen injury.
Delano Wilson filed his complaint in federal court against Missouri-based Upper Crust Food Service LLC, which provides college fraternities and sororities with food catering services across the country.
According to the complaint, Wilson began working for the defendant in October 2020 as a chef. He initially was an hourly employee, but he became salary in August 2021.
On September 11, 2022, Wilson says he was making watermelon sorbet in the kitchen at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity when he slipped and dipped his finger into the blades of the immersion blending, ripping off part of his left pinkie finger. He was taken by ambulance to Ruby Memorial Hospital’s emergency room for care.
Four days later, Wilson met with Dr. Andrea Lese at WVU Medical. She excused him from work until she was able to see him again October 4, 2022, to determine the extend of the effects of his injury. After that, he went directly to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity to return the company iPad back to direct supervisor Grayson Krieger so the substitute chef could use it.
During this exchange, Wilson told Krieger he would be off work until October 4, 2022, or longer per the doctor’s orders and gave her the work excuse. Krieger told Wilson he would be written up for failing to clean his kitchen, but she said he would not be fired.
“Plaintiff responded that he had no opportunity to clean the kitchen since he had left abruptly due to his injury and this was his first time back in the building since that time,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff also informed Krieger that he did a weekly deep clean every Sunday, which plaintiff had been unable to do that Sunday due to the timing of the injury.”
From September 16 to September 28, 2022, Wilson says he was not contacted by anyone from the defendant company, but he says he did receive messages and inquiries from members of the fraternity. He says he developed psychiatric conditions as a result of the trauma from his injury.
On September 28, 2022, Upper Crust management terminated Wilson during a phone call with Grayson and Regional Manager Matt Beradi.
“Before the plaintiff could say anything, Beradi blurted out, ‘This isn’t about your finger!’” the complaint states. “Grayson and Beradi then began to list various faults that they had assessed against plaintiff’s job performance, none of which had been raised with plaintiff prior to his injury.
“As plaintiff inquired about the provenance of these allegations and why they were being raised now rather than at the time that these problems supposedly arose, defendant’s allegations against the plaintiff morphed such that their new charge against him was that the members of Phi Kappa Psi were unhappy with plaintiff’s services.”
Wilson says he was surprised because no one from the fraternity had ever said anything like that to him. He says frat members actually had expressed their appreciation for his work. He says some members visited him in the wake of his injury.
“During this visit, the fraternity members disclosed to the plaintiff that defendant had told them plaintiff was removed as a ‘management issue,’” according to the complaint.
Wilson accuses the defendants of disability discrimination, saying he was fired because of physical and psychiatric injuries resulting from a workplace accident.
He seeks compensatory damages for lost wages and emotional distress, punitive damages, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
Wilson is being represented by Kirk Auvil and Walt Auvil of The Employment Law Center in Parkersburg. The case has been assigned to District Judge Thomas Kleeh.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 1:24-cv-83