A judge has allowed a delay in a federal lawsuit over control of The Greenbrier Hotel, but a state-level court action is heating up with conflict.
An affiliate of the Omni Hotels & Resorts chain and the longtime banker for the owners of The Greenbrier contend the state case should be knocked out.
In the federal case, which is on hold for 60 days, Omni affiliate White Sulphur Springs Holdings is asking for a third-party caretaker to oversee The Greenbrier. The holding company, which purchased $300 million in first-lien debt on The Greenbrier, contends its collateral is at risk.
In the separate state case, the owners of The Greenbrier claim that longtime lender Carter Bank & Trust and the owners of White Sulphur Springs Holdings, Texas billionaires Robert and Blake Rowling, had colluded and improperly used insider information to gain control of the Greenbrier Hotel debt.
The owners of The Greenbrier, Senator Jim Justice and his family, are saying the debt improperly changed hands from Carter Bank to White Sulphur Springs Holdings.
Lawyers for Carter Bank and White Sulphur Springs Holdings each filed responses last week, saying the state case in Greenbrier County is without solid grounding.
The defendants maintain that the Justices lack standing to challenge the sale of the loans and have failed to demonstrate irreparable harm because their financial difficulties are entirely self-inflicted.
“For more than fifteen years, plaintiffs accrued hundreds of millions of dollars in debt from CBT through various financing arrangements and then repeatedly defaulted on these agreements,” wrote the lawyers for White Sulphur Springs Holdings.
The holding company and the bank contend the sale of the debt and associated documents was within their authority.
“Plaintiffs’ primary relief request is the recission of CBT’s sale of Judgments to WSSH. However, Plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the sale of the Judgments because they are strangers to the transaction,” wrote attorneys for White Sulphur Springs Holdings.
Both the holding company and the bank cite improper venue, contending that mandatory forum selection clauses in documents signed by the Justices require these disputes to be heard in Virginia or New York rather than West Virginia.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings maintains it is in control of a forbearance agreement, which represents a contract between a lender and a borrower in default, where the lender temporarily pauses or reduces payments and delays legal action like foreclosure or repossession to allow the borrower to resolve financial hardship.
Signing such an agreement allows a grace period but essentially hands the keys to the creditor by admitting full liability and waiving almost all rights to contest a future judgment. It’s a high-risk legal document.
The Justices had signed a 14th forbearance agreement with Carter, effective this past Feb. 28. Carter then transferred it to White Sulphur Springs Holdings, which is seeking to assert its authority.
“The record is clear: Plaintiffs breached the 14th FBA by failing to pay their April 2026 interest payment and all outstanding real-estate taxes,” wrote the lawyers for White Sulphur Springs Holdings.
“Even if Plaintiffs had made those payments, the 14th FBA’s “Maturity Date” was April 15, 2026, and the forbearance period has expired. Either way, Plaintiffs have not satisfied their debts to WSSH and Plaintiffs must pay, indefeasibly and in full, the Judgments and all other obligations they owe to WSSH. But Plaintiffs cannot, or will not, pay.”
White Sulphur Springs Holdings further contends that a state-level injunction would unconstitutionally interfere with the active federal receivership action. Lawyers for the holding company say they are motivated to protect The Greenbrier property.
They say the current Greenbrier management is failing to pay vendors and local contractors necessary to maintain the business, failing to pay real estate and other taxes and putting key licenses at risk, failing to meet payroll obligations necessary for staff to provide appropriate guest services and failing to assure no revenue is being diverted.
“Without the ability to enforce its judgment-creditor rights and seek the immediate appointment of a receiver, the value of WSSH’s collateral will continue to diminish. The Greenbrier and its revenue are already being lost, concealed, injured, diminished in value, and squandered,” the lawyers wrote.