By Mike Tony
For HDMedia
The teetering business empire of Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., faces a new legal challenge responding to one of its units reporting a systematic failure that has cast doubt over more than two years of patient health assessments.
The Greenbrier Clinic, a self-billed, all-inclusive medical services unit at the Justice family’s Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, was hit with a federal class-action lawsuit Wednesday.
It’s the second class-action lawsuit to be filed against the clinic in as many months in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia over that self-reported failure.
The lawsuits followed the clinic in March sending letter correspondence to patients saying it failed to meet federal mammography standards over a two-plus-year period, calling into question the validity of testing results delivered in that span.
Wednesday’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of two Greenbrier County residents, April Wilson of White Sulphur Springs and Erin Dotson of Ronceverte, who respectively had mammograms performed at the clinic in October 2024 and March 2025, according to their complaint.
The complaint notes that the clinic on its website advertises 3D mammography service it bills as “one of the latest technological innovations in women’s healthcare” and that its 3D technology “improves accuracy and can help detect breast cancer earlier and therefore allow treatment sooner.”
But the complaint holds that the plaintiffs and potential class members received mammograms that were “inaccurate, inferior, and not in compliance with applicable image quality standards.”
The Wilson and Dotson complaint reports they were among the recipients of letter correspondence dated March 23, 2026, from the Greenbrier Clinic to those who had at least one mammogram performed at the clinic between Oct. 28, 2023, and Feb. 26 of this year. The letter correspondence reported “a serious concern about the quality of the mammography” conducted there during that time frame.
In its March 23 correspondence, the clinic reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined it had failed to meet clinical image quality standards established by the facility’s accreditation body, the American College of Radiology, as required by the FDA, resulting in the agency mandating that the clinic stop performing mammography as of Feb. 26.
The Greenbrier Clinic had not responded with an answer to that class-action complaint or another filed against it last month as of Thursday afternoon.
Justice family business attorney Steve Ruby said through a public relations official in a statement Wednesday the Greenbrier Clinic “takes patient care and safety extremely seriously and strongly disputes any suggestion that patients were intentionally misled or that the Clinic failed to act responsibly.”
Ruby said the clinic has appealed the FDA’s determination “to a higher level within the agency,” saying it believes “that determination was erroneous.” Ruby asserted the FDA’s conclusions “do not accurately reflect the quality of care provided by the Clinic or the actions taken in response.”
“[W]e will respond more fully through the legal process,” Ruby pledged, adding that the clinic “remains committed to protecting its reputation, supporting its medical professionals, and ensuring patients continue to receive the high standard of care they expect and deserve.”
The FDA’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to a request for comment.
Lawsuit: Clinic ‘unjustly enriched’ after ‘deficient’ tests
Mammograms can detect breast cancer early, sometimes up to three years before it can be felt, underscoring the importance of valid test results.
Dotson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and has surgical procedures since her diagnosis, with the last procedure taking place in 2022 or 2023, according to the complaint, which adds that Dotson began experiencing pain “[a]round 2025” and was scheduled for a mammogram at the Greenbrier Clinic on March 3, 2025. Dotson is working with her healthcare providers to schedule follow-up procedures, according to the complaint.
Wilson is scheduled for an appointment in June 2026 to determine whether a repeat mammogram is necessary, according to the complaint, which says both Wilson and Dotson have incurred and will keep incurring expenses due to what it calls “the worthless mammograms” they provided.
The complaint proposes a class of all people in the U.S. who received at least one mammogram from the Greenbrier Clinic between Oct. 28, 2023, and Feb. 26, 2026, and were notified that their mammogram needed to be reviewed to determine whether a repeat mammogram was needed.
The federal class-action complaint follows another filed last month against the clinic on behalf of plaintiff Tabitha Martin of Monroe County, who alleges she “did not get what she paid for” when getting a mammogram at the clinic on Feb. 13, 2026. That complaint cites the same March correspondence from the clinic reporting concern about the quality of its mammography.
The clinic sent the letter correspondence to more than 1,000 patients living across the country and internationally, according to Martin’s complaint.
The Dotson and Wilson complaint contends that by charging them and potential class members for “mammograms that were deficient, inferior and of lesser value,” the Greenbrier Clinic was “unjustly enriched,” causing them “sustained emotional distress” and committing breach of contract. The complaint asserts that the clinic violated the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act by making “false, misleading, or deceptive statements as part of its business of soliciting its services to customers.”
Clinic claimed 80-member staff, ‘state-of-the-art’ equipment
The Greenbrier Clinic said in its March 23 correspondence that the FDA required it to notify “all affected patients” about the mammography quality control failure in addition to patients’ health providers, though the clinic noted that the problem doesn’t necessarily mean results they were given were incorrect.
The Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992 cited by the clinic in its letter requires that mammography facilities be certified under the law as providing quality mammography services, undergo periodic review of its clinical images, be inspected at least annually by a certified inspector, and be accredited by a state body or federally approved private nonprofit.
Radiologic technologists who conduct mammographic procedures, physicians who interpret mammographic images and medical physicists who survey mammography equipment all must meet the law’s standards.
The Greenbrier Clinic’s website claims to have a roughly 80-member staff that, in part, “delivers the highest quality diagnostic health care,” with “state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment” that “assures maximum comfort and safety for our patients, as well as accurate, early detection of medical problems.”
Laboratory testing, imaging and gastroenterology services are available through the clinic, according to the website, which boasts that “[t]housands of people worldwide come to The Greenbrier Clinic for state-of-the-art healthcare every year.”
Martin’s complaint reports she “went from having every reason to believe she was not at risk for breast cancer, to having no reason at all to believe that she was not at risk for breast cancer.”
“It is entirely foreseeable that if a clinic, like Defendant, issues a letter telling its patients that their diagnostic testing results, the very purpose of which is to put the patient’s mind at ease or to initiate a treatment plan, are inaccurate and unreliable,” the complaint states, “that is going to cause those patients severe distress and concern about their health and wellbeing.”
Justice firms have allowed recurring health coverage lapses
The Greenbrier Clinic suits come amid a federal court challenge from retired miners, their dependents and the United Mine Workers of America union who have reported a lapse in prescription drug coverage contractually promised to them by Justice’s coal companies — the latest interruption among many lasting from days up to three weeks they’ve reported in recent years.
The lapses have jeopardized the health of Justice coal company retirees and their dependents and forced some to go without vital medications and pay out of pocket for others.
Four retirees of Justice coal companies and the UMWA sued those companies in 2019 to enforce an agreement covering prescription drug coverage in an unresolved lawsuit.
Justice pledged that he would put his children in charge of his family’s business operations upon becoming West Virginia’s governor in 2017. Justice has suggested in interviews and court proceedings after he became governor that he remains familiar with his coal companies’ operations.
Justices face Greenbrier business network takeover threat
Meanwhile, the Justice family’s Greenbrier business network is fighting a takeover attempt in court from an international hotel chain affiliate to which it is indebted nearly $300 million.
White Sulphur Springs Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Dallas-based hotel chain Omnis Hotels and Resorts, wants the West Virginia Southern District to immediately appoint a receiver over Justice family companies tied to The Greenbrier.
The company wants the receiver to have the authority to seize control of the firms, assets and operations, the right to start further legal proceedings regarding other non-debtors, and a permanent injunction to prevent the Justices and their current businesses from any actions that hinder the receiver’s authority to operate the companies.
The request from the newly formed White Sulphur Springs Holdings follows it buying $289 million in loans, subsequently reduced to judgments, related to entities in which Justice had an interest, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in March from the seller of the loans, Carter Bankshares Inc., parent company of Martinsville, Virginia-based Carter Bank.
The Justices have claimed that TRT Holdings, Inc., parent company of Omni, violated a nondisclosure agreement that barred it from acquiring or proposing to acquire their loans. That alleged violation, they claim, invalidates White Sulphur Springs Holdings’ purchase of the loans and wipes out its right to seek a receiver.
The Justices also have asked the West Virginia Southern District court to stand down in its consideration of the case until the Greenbrier County Circuit Court decides whether White Sulphur Springs Holdings has a right to enforce the loan agreements and thus pursue a receivership in a pending case the Justices filed subsequently in the circuit court to try blocking the Omni affiliate’s takeover push.
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