But retirees of Justice’s coal companies have told the same federal court that they’re losing out on something more valuable to them — prescription drug coverage that those companies contractually promised to them.

Prior to the court filing, the Gazette-Mail reported this month that prescription drug coverage lapses were reoccurring for Justice coal company retirees and their dependents.

Their claim of the Justice coal companies’ renewed failure to provide prescription drug coverage coincides with a former partner of Justice energy firms reporting to another federal court that he and the firms have failed to comply with a multimillion-dollar judgment against them from 2021.

And in a separate case, another federal court has entered a judgment against a different Justice energy company that a union accused of violating a collective bargaining agreement by failing to provide an arbitration award granted to a 28-year employee the company was found to have improperly laid off.

Four retired Justice coal company mine workers and the United Mine Workers of America International union on Thursday asked a federal court, in part, for damages in the amount of any out-of-pocket expenses they and their dependents have incurred while their prescription drug coverage was terminated.

The retired miners and UMWA said in a Thursday filing the Justice coal companies have failed to provide prescription drug benefits from Jan. 23 to Feb. 9 and again from March 19 to the present.

The report comes in a lawsuit the miners and union filed in 2019 flagging health benefit service interruptions allowed by Justice coal companies causing miners and their dependents to pay out of pocket for or go without critical drugs.

The plaintiffs and other retired miners have reported intermittent lapses in coverage of only a few days to several weeks since then.

The Justice-controlled firms that are defendants in the case are Justice Energy Co., Keystone Service Industries, Inc., Bluestone Coal Corp., Double-Bonus Coal Co. and Southern Coal Corp.

The UMWA has said that 250 to 300 healthcare recipients have been affected by past coverage interruptions.

Steven Ruby, a lawyer for the companies, did not respond to requests for comment.

Ruby previously has said prescription payments through a third-party administrator sometimes have been unavailable.

Spokespeople for Justice’s Senate office did not respond to requests for comment.

Linda Lafferty, who lives in the tiny, unincorporated McDowell County community of Northfork, indicated in a court declaration revealed Thursday the latest coverage lapse has hit her hard, given her reliance on the coverage earned by her husband Andrew Lafferty, as a retiree of Justice’s Keystone Service Industries, Inc.

Lafferty said in the declaration that she had gone without medication since Jan. 30 because she couldn’t obtain refills.

“Going without that medicine is frightening to me,” Lafferty said in the declaration, reporting she had adverse health episodes before she was prescribed the medication, which was redacted from public view.

Lafferty said she was told her prescription benefits were inactive and she couldn’t get her medicine when she called to check on her prescriptions at the Walmart in Bluefield, Virginia on Feb. 3. Lafferty said she called Leslie Wells, a representative of the companies, who told her the companies would wire her the money she needed to buy the medications. Then Lafferty told Wells the cost of the medications — $4,405 — and provided Wells her bank account information, according to Lafferty’s declaration.

But then Lafferty didn’t receive the wire transfer and subsequently couldn’t reach Wells, with no indication from the companies when the prescription benefits would be reinstated, according to Lafferty.

The out-of-pocket costs for Lafferty’s medications would consume about 80% of her and her husband’s monthly after-tax income, Lafferty warned in her declaration.

Jeannie Starcher of North Tazewell, Virginia, just beyond McDowell County, said in a declaration filed Thursday she couldn’t get medications needed to address a redacted, life-threatening condition for her husband and Justice Energy Co. retiree Ronald Starcher on Feb. 1 at a Walmart pharmacy more than 10 miles from her home, where she said a worker told her their prescription benefits were inactive.

Starcher said that after she again couldn’t get the medications on Feb. 2 for the same reason, Connie Vance, a representative of the companies she regularly contacts regarding issues with Starcher’s health and prescription benefits, told her to call Wells, noting she works in human resources for the companies.

But although Vance said Wells would have a credit card that could be used to buy the medications while the prescription benefits were inactive, Walmart’s pharmacy did not accept credit cards over the phone as payment, Starcher said. So, per Starcher, Wells told her on Feb. 3 the companies would wire her the money needed to purchase medications, at which point Starcher said the cost of the outstanding medications was $1,811 and provided her bank account information.

But Starcher said she hadn’t received the wire transfer or any communications from the companies to explain why she hadn’t received the wire transfer or when she might receive it.

Starcher testified that the out-of-pocket costs for eight medications her husband is entitled to would consume roughly 60% of their monthly after-tax income. Because her husband couldn’t get medication refills, he had to ration what medications he had left, she reported.

“This situation causes me enormous stress, worry, and frustration,” Starcher said.

Vickie Lester of the southwestern Virginia town of Rural Retreat testified that prescription drug coverage lapses like the one affecting her and her husband Jimmy Lester, a Bluestone Coal Corp. retiree, last month have occurred in the past, including as recently as January into February this year.

In a declaration filed Thursday, Lester said she has had to go without medication after getting a March 19 call from her pharmacy stating her prescription benefits were invalid and that she would need to pay the full cost of her medication herself. Lester reported getting no indication from the companies when she could expect to get prescription benefits again.

Lester testified the cost of a one-month supply was $4,489 — too much for her to afford, as it would constitute over 90% of her and her husband’s monthly income.

“I am worried about not receiving my medication,” Lester testified. “I am worried about my health issues getting worse because of my lack of medication.”

The persistent interruptions reported by the miners and their dependents come despite a September 2022 agreement requiring Justice Energy to deposit $175,000 into an escrow account to safeguard payment of health care and prescription drug coverage benefits for retirees as well as active and laid-off employees.

The escrow account was made available for the Justice company to draw upon to avoid any health benefit service interruptions, with a requirement to replenish the withdrawn account within 10 days.

“Our hope is that with this escrow account we will be able to rectify any concerns going forward,” UMWA spokesperson Erin Bates told the Gazette-Mail in April 2023.

But later that year, the UMWA and retired miners told the federal court in their long-running lawsuit from 2019 that the $175,000 escrow account had been depleted by previously undisclosed withdrawals and that the companies hadn’t responded to UMWA requests for confirmation that further deposits were made after an initial $20,000 contribution.

In a declaration dated Thursday, UMWA associate general counsel Hill Pickens reported that on Feb. 6, 2026, Bluestone general counsel Stephen Ball provided him with bank statements showing the escrow account had been funded to levels required under a 2022 agreement only for six days from Jan. 27, 2023 to Feb. 2, 2023, and that since Feb. 2, 2024, the escrow account has had a balance of less than $100.

Ball’s report came two days after he informed Pickens that a creditor had secured a lien on the escrow account established by the Justice companies under the 2022 agreement preventing Bluestone from placing funds in or withdrawing funds from that account, according to Pickens’ testimony.

In a separate case, counsel for a Pennsylvania coal marketing company on Thursday submitted a federal court filing stating that Sen. Justice and his Bluestone Energy Sales Corp. and Southern Coal Corp. have “not expressed any willingness or ability to satisfy” a September 2021 judgment of just over $10 million.

The District Court for the District of Delaware ruled Xcoal was entitled to $6.8 million and later increased that amount to just over $10 million after accounting for interest, attorney’s fees and costs.

The defendants were found liable to the coal marketing company, Latrobe, Pennsylvania-based Xcoal Energy & Resources, after a 2021 court finding of a Justice company coal supply agreement violation.

An Alabama federal court this month granted a summary judgment against Justice-controlled Bluestone Coke LLC in a case in which United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO/CLC alleged the company reached a collective bargaining agreement when it laid off a union member with greater seniority than a worker the employer retained.

The union sought an order enforcing an arbitration award against Bluestone, which did not respond to its summary judgment motion by the court’s deadline.

The court noted that Randall Fowler, a Bluestone employee with 28 years seniority, was laid off while an employee with less seniority was retained, and that Bluestone violated a collective bargaining agreement’s seniority protections when it did so.

The court awarded back pay owed to Fowler totaling $49,649 plus prejudgment interest on the back pay amount due from the December 2022 date of the arbitration award.

The Justices have asked a federal court to put on hold a case filed by the company that has bought their nine-figure debt seeking to take over the Justices’ Greenbrier business empire.

Justice, his wife Cathy, son Jay and six companies under The Greenbrier umbrella have asked the District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia to put on hold the request from White Sulphur Springs Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Dallas-based Omni Hotels & Resorts, for the court to appoint a receiver to take over the Justices’ Greenbrier properties – including the historic Greenbrier Hotel.

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.

The Justices’ filing Thursday came two days after White Sulphur Springs Holdings proposed an order for the court’s approval that would give the family and their Greenbrier firms three days to deliver all property to a receiver, including all keys to the estate, financial records, bank accounts, Greenbrier resort employee roster and payroll information, and an equipment and inventory list.

Revealed on April 10, the receivership request from 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 last month from the seller of the loans, Carter Bankshares Inc., parent company of Martinsville, Virginia-based Carter Bank.

The Justices claimed in their filing Thursday 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, the filing from their Charleston-based attorney Steven Ruby in the case assigned to Chief Judge Frank Volk claims, invalidates White Sulphur Springs Holdings’ purchase of the loans and wipes out its right to seek a receiver.

The Omni affiliate has specified that while it owns judgments secured by property interests like coal mining assets unrelated to The Greenbrier resort, it seeks only a receiver over the defendant companies and their property interests comprising the resort.

While the Justices fight for their Greenbrier properties, Justice coal company retirees and their dependents hope their long, documented history of prescription drug coverage lapses soon comes to an end.

“During these lapses, I get very discouraged and aggravated,” Lester testified. “My husband and I have been through so much over the years. You think you have health insurance and then you do not.”