Gov. Jim Justice tries to halt foreclosure of his West Virginia hotel as he runs for US Senate
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Governor Jim Justice is in a crazy legal battle as he runs for the U.S. Senate to save a historic West Virginia hotel into his luxury resort before it is auctioned off next week due to unpaid debts.
About 400 employees at the Greenbrier hotel received a letter Monday from an attorney representing health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund saying they will lose their coverage effective Aug. 27 unless the Republican’s family pays $2.4 million in missing contributions, Peter Bostic of the Workers United Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Board said Tuesday.
The coverage was supposed to end on the day the hotel was to be auctioned, which lawyers for the Justice family have asked a judge to stop. They argue that the auction would be partly harmful to the economy and threaten hundreds of jobs.
The Justice family has not made contributions to the employee health fund in four months, and another $1.2 million in contributions will soon be due, according to the letter from Ronald Richman, an attorney at Schulte Roth. & Zabel LLP, the firm representing the Amalgamated National Health Fund.
The letter also stated that contributions were being withheld from employees’ salaries but never transferred to the health insurance fund, which has raised concerns among union officials.
“We are deeply saddened and disappointed to learn that The Greenbrier Hotel, despite its contractual and legal obligation to do so, has seriously defaulted on our health insurance provider,” Bostic said in a statement. “The Greenbrier’s negligence has seriously jeopardized our members’ health care benefits and is morally and legally wrong.”
The letter was first reported by RealWV, a news site run by former Democratic Sen. Stephen Baldwin. Democrat Glenn Elliott, Justice’s opponent in the U.S. Senate race and a former mayor of Wheeling, wrote on the social media platform X that Justice’s “sense of entitlement to things that are not his is boundless and indefensible.”
Justice, who owns dozens of companies and had a net worth estimated at $513 million by Forbes magazine in 2021, is accused of numerous lawsuits of late payments of millions in debts of family businesses and fines for unsafe working conditions in its coal mines.
He began the first of his two terms as governor in 2017, after buying The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009. The hotel has hosted U.S. presidents and royalty and hosted a PGA Tour tournament from 2010 to 2019.
Justice’s family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a “resort within a resort” for members only. That property was scheduled to be auctioned this year in an attempt by Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, is trying to recover more than $300 million in business loans that the governor’s family defaulted on, but a lawsuit has delayed the process.
The auction, taking place at a courthouse in the town of Lewisburg, covers 150 acres of land, including the hotel and parking lot.
The hotel was at risk of being auctioned off after JPMorgan Chase sold a long-term loan from Justice to a collection agency, McCormick 101, which declared the hotel in default.
In court documents filed this week, attorneys for Justice argue that a 2014 trust deed approved by the governor is flawed because JPMorgan failed to obtain consent from Greenbrier Hotel Corporation’s directors or owners, and that auctioning the property violates the company’s obligation to deal with the business “in good faith and honestly.”
Neither the Justice family’s attorneys nor Greenbrier’s chief financial officer and treasurer, Adam Long, responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that approximately 400 employees received the insurance letter, not exactly 400.