West Virginia Secretary of State's wrongful firing settlements top $3 million
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https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/secretary-of-state-s-wrongful-firing-lawsuit-settlements-top-million/article_b73e5294-c66d-5eaa-8298-bcc5f6184c3f.html
Six more former employees of the Secretary of State’s office who were among a large group fired when Mac Warner took office in January 2017 have settled wrongful termination
suits for a total of nearly $2.14 million.
“So far, over $3.1 million has been paid, and the only reason the state did that is because there’s a terrible problem in the Secretary of State’s Office,” Mark Atkinson, one of the
attorneys for the fired employees, said Monday.
Atkinson noted that under the law, at-will employees cannot be fired on grounds including race, ethnic origin, gender, age or “political affiliation, and the U.S. Supreme Court and state
Supreme Court has upheld that for decades,” Atkinson said.
When Warner took office in January 2017, he fired 16 employees, most of whom had between 8 and 50 years of governmental service. Fifteen were registered Democrats, and one
was independent. Despite the initial claims that the cuts were in order to “streamline” the office, Warner subsequently hired 22 new employees, most with little or no government
experience, 19 of whom were Republicans.
In a deposition, Warner said he did not know the political affiliations of the employees he fired, saying they were fired for lack of competence or because they “didn’t fit the mold” for his
vision of the office. He said his transition team did not review personnel files, and conducted brief, five-minute interviews of employees.
In the deposition, conducted on Nov. 28, 2017, Warner said he was aware that many of his new hires were Republicans, since many had been or worked for Republican candidates or
office-holders, or had held positions in the state Republican Party or county Republican Executive Committees.
To date, the 10 settlements total $3,102,500. Two cases are pending, involving investigators Thomas Ranson and Jeff Shriner, both fired after the other employees were fired. Shriner’s
case has been scheduled for trial in Kanawha Circuit Court in January.
he got what he wanted though a purge of the office, they got something out of it too thankfully but loosing that much institutional knowledge because one fucknut cones along and decides they didn't want to be democratic.
The brain drain is even worse since it's West Virginia, good job finding some competent people in the future.
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