A federal judge has approved an agreement to end a federal court standoff between a ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä insurance provider and one of U.S. Sen. Jim Justice’s coal companies.
U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., speaks during a May 8, 2025, Senate Energy and Resources Committee meeting.
BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co. had said the West Virginia Republican’s Southern Coal Corp. had not complied with a previous court order to pay over $500,000 and breached a subsequent settlement agreement.
But Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon dismissed the case Friday in the District Court for the Western District of Virginia after the firms told the court that all matters that followed a 2023 judgment in BrickStreet’s favor had been resolved.
A joint filing from the companies Thursday reported they had settled the dispute on July 11 via an undisclosed, written settlement agreement under which Southern Coal had made a “payment satisfactory†to BrickStreet.
BrickStreet accordingly agreed to waive civil contempt sanctions that had accrued against Southern Coal and attorneys’ fees it was awarded in the case, per the filing.
Just a day before BrickStreet and Southern Coal filed their joint dismissal motion, Dillon issued an order granting a BrickStreet motion from two months earlier to force Southern Coal to respond to a February 2024 request for information to collect its judgment.
In February 2024, the court imposed a $2,500 fine on Southern Coal per day of noncompliance with the court’s September 2023 order to replenish a loss fund it required Southern Coal to maintain as collateral with an initial $1.3 million balance and minimum $500,000 balance.
Southern Coal had not paid anything into the loss fund or done anything to comply with the 2023 order, the court noted, adding the company hadn’t produced evidence to support its argument that other Justice entities could no longer pay Southern Coal’s debts after judgments against them.
The court found Southern Coal to be insolvent.
The court noted in its February 2024 order finding the Justice company in contempt that although Southern Coal corporate representative Stephen Ball said the company wasn’t in a position to replenish the loss fund because it had no income, the company had indicated “[o]ther entities within the Justice framework have paid joint owed debts of Southern Coal or other debts owed by the corporation.â€
Southern Coal admitted in November 2023 it had failed to reimburse BrickStreet for claim payments since 2017, failed to pay BrickStreet’s invoices from May 2019 through June 2020, wasn’t actively mining coal, had no income or open bank accounts, and lacked assets that can be liquidated.
Justice family business legal woes persist despite Thursday’s dismissal order.
A judge on Thursday recommended a federal court grant a Swiss company’s request to require another Justice coal company, Bluestone Coal Sales Corp., to produce cashflow spreadsheets that the judge says could help determine if the senator’s business transferred assets to other entities to hide them and avoid honoring an agreement to pay $1.5 million.
U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Kailani Memmer’s recommendation filed in a Virginia federal court Thursday advised the presiding district judge to order Bluestone Coal Sales to produce the cashflow spreadsheets within 10 days for Swiss raw materials trader VISA Commodities AG.
In November 2022, the Virginia Western District Court similarly ruled Bluestone Coal Sales was liable for $1.5 million plus arbitration costs and interest, enforcing an April 2022 order from a London-based arbitrator.
Bluestone Coal Sales agreed to pay $1.5 million in an April 2021 settlement agreement after failing to supply 70,000 metric tons of coal under a November 2020 sales agreement.
Justice coal firm owed DEP $916K+ in delinquent fines
Bluestone Coal Corp., another Justice coal firm, owed the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection $916,273 this month in delinquent fines for 133 DEP disciplinary actions spanning September 2019 to April 2025, according to DEP data obtained by the Gazette-Mail.
Martinsville, Virginia-based Carter Bankshares Inc., holding company of Carter Bank, reported in April that Justice entities had paid $56.8 million of a $301.9 million debt as of March 31.
Carter Bank scheduled an auction of Greenbrier Sporting Club property that featured prominently in the Justice business empire last year to help satisfy a nine-figure Justice family debt to the bank. The auction was later canceled, and the Justice family and the bank announced the settlement of the dispute, in which the bank has sought $300 million-plus in debt admitted by the Justices.
Five of Justice’s coal companies again failed to provide retirees health care coverage in violation of a collective bargaining agreement, retirees and the United Mine Workers of America union said in an April 2025 court filing.
The reported failures were the latest in a yearslong string of intermittent lapses in contractually promised health care and prescription drug coverage that retirees have said resulted in the loss of critical medications.
Justice pledged to put his adult children in charge of his family’s business operations after becoming governor in 2017.
Justice’s business debts persist following Justice’s July 1 vote for a Republican budget reconciliation bill the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said would add at least $3.3 trillion to the national debt, making projected deep cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending to support extending 2017 tax cuts that have benefited the wealthy.
Mike Tony covers energy and the environment. He can be reached at mtony@hdmediallc.com or 304-348-1236. Follow @Mike__Tony on X.Â
