MORGANTOWN – A Monongalia County woman has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit over hidden cameras found in staff bathrooms at Ruby Memorial Hospital.
The plaintiff, identified in the complaint only as P.J.P., filed the complaint September 1 in Monongalia Circuit Court. West Virginia University Hospitals and West Virginia United Health System are the named defendants.
Giatras
“A hospital restroom should be an unquestioned sanctuary of privacy, not a crime scene with a hidden lens,” Troy Giatras, one of the attorneys who filed the complaint, told The West Virginia Record. “These dedicated healthcare workers came to work to save lives, only to have their fundamental dignity violated.”
In the complaint, P.J.P. alleges she was a Ruby Memorial employee during the relevant period and was among workers secretly recorded in staff restroom facilities. She says the defendants failed to protect employees from hidden-camera surveillance in nonpublic staff bathrooms.
She alleges the entities were negligent and grossly negligent in hiring, supervising, training and retaining employees, including former physician Lance Parks, and in maintaining a workplace protected from invasions of privacy.
According to the complaint, a staff member found a hidden recording device June 26 beneath a sink in a nonpublic staff restroom at Ruby Memorial. A second device was discovered July 1 after a facilities employee responded to a clogged toilet in another nonpublic restroom, the suit says.
Authorities previously said the first device contained footage of eight hospital employees who were unknowingly recorded while partially nude. The second device contained no images or other media, according to the Monongalia County Prosecutor’s Office.
The complaint alleges Parks “surreptitiously recorded nude and/or partially nude employees” in the nonpublic bathrooms and the defendants did not adequately protect staff members from the alleged surveillance.
Stonestreet
“While law enforcement handles the criminal conduct of Lance Parks, the civil justice system exists to hold institutions accountable for failing their duty of care,” Matt Stonestreet, another attorney representing the plaintiffs, told The Record. “WVU Hospitals provided the venue, employed the physician, and assured staff their private spaces were safe.
“When an institution fails to supervise its staff and conducts sweeps that miss hidden cameras right under its nose, it shares full legal and moral responsibility for the harm caused.”
The complaint further alleges the hospitals failed to detect the devices, including after the first camera was found. The defendants initially suspended the employee involved and later said he no longer worked at the hospital, according to reports.
Parks was charged in July with eight misdemeanor counts of criminal invasion of privacy and one felony count involving the distribution and exhibition of computer-generated child pornography, according to the Monongalia County Prosecutor’s Office. Investigators executed a search warrant at his home and seized computers and digital-storage devices for forensic examination.
Investigators said they were continuing to examine the seized devices to determine the full scope of potential criminal conduct and identify any additional victims.
The civil complaint says Parks waived his preliminary hearing and is awaiting possible indictment by the Monongalia County Prosecutor’s Office.
“WVU Hospitals told staff they swept the facilities and found nothing,” Giatras told The Record. “Days later, plumbing backed up and a second camera was pulled from a toilet. That is not thorough security. That is negligent indifference.
“Once these deeply intimate, non-consensual recordings exist, they cannot be unseen. The psychological damage follows these victims every single day.”
The plaintiff contends the alleged conduct was gender-based harassment and discrimination because she is a woman and asserts the cameras were installed to secretly record women “when they were the most vulnerable.”
The complaint accuses the defendants of invasion of privacy, breach of confidentiality, violations of the West Virginia Human Rights Act, violation of the West Virginia Constitution, negligent supervision, negligent infliction of emotional distress, violation of the West Virginia Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act and negligence.
“You cannot shrug off corporate responsibility by blaming one bad actor when your own policies, supervision, and facility checks completely collapsed,” Giatras said.
The complaint also alleges the defendants’ conduct caused anxiety, humiliation, emotional distress, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, annoyance and inconvenience.
It seeks class certification for West Virginia residents allegedly recorded in nonpublic bathroom facilities at Ruby Memorial and “any other facility” owned, operated or managed by the defendants in the state.
The plaintiff and potential class seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, court costs and class certification.
The lawsuit was filed by Giatras and Stonestreet of The Giatras Law Firm in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Perri J. DeChristopher.
Giatras said any additional victims confidentially can contact his firm for more information by texting 304-343-2900 or visiting its website.
Monongalia Circuit Court case number 26-C-347
