F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules.”
Who among us has not been involved in a family dispute? The source can be something as small as a perceived slight or as big as a physical confrontation. They can last just a few minutes or they can drag on for generations.
Most family disputes stop at the fringes of the family tree. However, if you are a well-known family, the feud becomes a public matter. And so it is now with the state’s leading political family—the Manchins.
The decision by Mylan and its chief executive Heather Bresch to move the drug company to the Netherlands to avoid a higher tax rate in this country (a practice called “inversion”) was a controversial move that drew even more public attention because her father is Senator Joe Manchin.
Manchin says he found out about Mylan’s move like everyone else, when it appeared in the news. Under prompting from the National Journal’s Ron Fournier, the Senator denounced his daughter’s decision.
“I think, basically, inversion should be absolutely repealed,” Manchin said. “All of them. Get ‘em all, Ron. Get ‘em all.”
Then last week, Dr. John Manchin filed suit in Marion County Circuit Court against his Senator brother and another brother, Roch Manchin. It’s a business dispute stemming from a $1.7 million loan John Manchin made to his brothers to keep a family carpet business afloat.
The suit claims, “On repeated and numerous occasions over time, Plaintiff John Manchin II has requested that Defendants Joseph Manchin III and Roch Manchin satisfy their contractual obligation, promise, and agreement to pay him for the amount or value of the financial assistance and support provided to them and their failing partnership.”
That’s pretty standard lawsuit language in contract disagreements, but how do you think that plays among blood brothers?
The lawsuit comes just a little over two months after the family’s beloved matriarch, Mary Manchin, mother of Joe, Roch and John, passed away at age 91. Perhaps John purposely waited until after their mother passed to take the legal action. Who knows?
Senator Manchin had no comment on the legal fight with his brother. “It’s a family matter,” said a spokesman. Indeed it is, but the down side of being a public figure is that such matters play out in public.