Coal companies owned by Gov. Jim Justice and his family have agreed to resume making good on mine safety penalties that date back almost a decade.
Attorneys representing the federal government and lawyers representing the Justice companies entered a joint status report in federal court this week.
The 23 Justice companies already had an agreement with federal officials to make monthly payments on mine safety penalties that racked up from 2014 to 2019. But the Justice companies missed several payments in a row earlier this year.
“Due to financial difficulties, the Defendants have been unable to make certain payments on time and have missed payments,” lawyers wrote in new, jointly-filed status report.
After the federal attorneys moved in court to compel the Justice companies to make the payments, the two sides got together.
“Defendants paid the July 2023 payment on time and the parties have reached an agreement regarding the current past due balance,” the lawyers wrote.
“Based on that agreement, Defendants shall pay the August, September, and October payments on time, and beginning in August make weekly payments of $51,221 for a period of 10 weeks to pay the past due balance. All payments shall be made timely.”
So, both sides agree, the payments are back underway.
This situation developed because from 2014 to until 2019, theJustice companies failed to pay mine safety fines totaling $4,776,370, according to federal prosecutors.
In May 2019, the federal prosecutors under the Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed suit over the debt on behalf of the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
It’s a civil case, the United States of America vs. Southern Coal Corp., et al. This is different from a similar but new case where the Department of Justice filed suit in late May over $5 million in federal surface mining fines.
In the earlier case, the parties reached a 2020 settlement agreement. The Justice coal companies acknowledged and agreed to pay a little more than $5 million in total fines.
The companies were supposed to make monthly payments of $102,442 until the debt was fully paid.
However, “Defendants have consistently made their monthly payments late,” federal prosecutors wrote in a renewed attempt to collect the money, filed earlier this spring.
The payments started getting spotty in December 2021 and January 2022, but then improved somewhat after federal officials filed notice of non-compliance.
Then, this past January, the non-payment began, according to the federal prosecutors who said they repeatedly notified the Justice companies of past due amounts.
Payments were missed entirely for January, February, March, April, May and June.
Last month, Michael Urbanski, the chief judge for the Western District of Virginia, entered an order for the Justice companies to make more than $400,000 in missed payments.
The order came down the same day Justice made public statements urging less public attention of his companies’ financial conflicts, with the governor describing a track record of eventually making good on debts.
“I’ve said many, many times, judge me for what I’m doing as your governor. Absolutely leave my family’s business to my son and daughter. Let them do their job. And at the end of the day see where it comes out,” Justice said in a 12-minute conclusion to a news briefing.
“If you want to, write it down and put it in a box. When you go back in a couple of weeks, I bet you and I promise you with my family’s businesses you’re going to say ‘dag, we got all this worked out, everything is fine and dandy – what in the world were we doing?’