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WHEELING -- More than a dozen current and former Ohio County 911 dispatchers have filed a lawsuit against the Ohio County Commission for multiple claims including pay issues and an unsafe work environment.
The lawsuit, filed March 15 in Ohio County Circuit Court by the Toriseva Law Group on behalf of 16 current and former dispatchers, claims the county did not properly pay "on-call" dispatchers for that designation, failed to fully compensate dispatchers for lost vacation and sick leave time, made dispatchers use personal sick leave for COVID-19 sickness, quarantining and county-mandated quarantine periods, lacked adequate fire escapes and operated a dispatch office that was contaminated with black dust and soot from the HVAC system.
"The lawsuit is about their unsafe working conditions and their pay," attorney Teresa Toriseva said in a statement. "The dispatchers do not have a safe working environment. Their offices lack adequate egress routes in case of a fire, and they're forced to breathe black soot coming from the building's HVAC system. Their building is unsafe and not maintained.
"To add insult to injury, the dispatchers are not paid in accordance with West Virginia law and the County Commission's own pay policies. Each dispatcher is required to maintain 24-hour readiness during his or her 'on-call' week. At all times, one dispatcher is required to be on-call and be ready to work in cases of extreme emergencies or when other dispatchers are absent from work. The County Commission, however, fails to pay the on-call dispatcher in accordance with West Virginia law.
"This lawsuit intends to fix those issues, among several others."
Ohio County Administrator Randy Russell acknowledged the lawsuit but said the commission does not comment on pending litigation.
Chief among the dispatchers' claims was their issue with the county's "on-call" system. According to the complaint, dispatchers work one 48-hour week and one 36-hour week during a two-week pay period. They work four days on and three days off one week and three days on and four days off the next in 12-hour shifts.
According to the complaint, the county requires at least one dispatcher to be "on call," 24 hours a day, for a full week to step in for another dispatcher if they call in sick, call off or are forced to work for any other reason.
According to the lawsuit, the dispatchers are not paid for their on-call time unless called into work. However, they claim, they must remain in close proximity to the dispatch office, must report to work immediately if called, are not free to use their time off as they see fit during their on-call rotations, and are threatened with disciplinary measures if they do not report to work immediately after being called.
The lawsuit claims that on-call provision violates the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act, saying that according to state code, if an employee is required to be on call, the employer "shall treat the on-call time as compensable time."
The lawsuit also claims the county commission "arbitrarily eliminated" three days of vacation and reduced sick leave accrual -- then reversed that policy -- but failed to make the dispatchers whole by compensating them for that lost time, particularly dispatchers who stopped working for the county prior to 2023.
The COVID-19/sick leave claim has similarities to a lawsuit filed against the county commission by Ohio County Sheriff's deputies. That lawsuit was settled in May of last year.
The lawsuit also claims that there is only one fire escape available for the dispatch office, when West Virginia fire code states that the "means of egress ... shall not be less than two." Dispatchers also claim they were exposed to hazardous materials through the black soot and dust coming through the building's HVAC system.
The dispatchers seek "injunctive relief, compensatory damages, statutory interest, liquidated damages in an amount to be determined by an expert at trial, plus costs and fees, including attorneys' fees and any other relief this Court deems just and proper."
Circuit Judge Ronald Wilson has been assigned the case.