CHARLESTON – The City of Nitro is facing a class-action lawsuit claiming the city failed to protect sensitive personal information of its employees.
The named plaintiff, identified only as E.L., filed the complaint October 28 in Kanawha Circuit Court against the City of Nitro.
“Because of the defendant, their Sensitive Information is forever in the ether," the complaint states.
In the complaint, E.L. says the city failed to implement basic security measures, including device encryption, employee training, and adequate supervision, despite promising to safeguard employee data as part of their employment.
It says a data breach occurred in January when a city accounting employee received an email claiming to be Mayor David Casebolt asking to “kindly copy me copies of 2024 W2 (PDF) of all staff for a quick review.” The employee replied to the email, which was a Gmail account instead of an official city account, by sending a PDF containing sensitive employee information. Such data for nearly 150 city employees was sent.
The city notified employees of the breach April 8, but the complaint says it didn’t provide details about the extent of the exposure.
The complaint says employees’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers and tax information was exposed to unauthorized hackers and third parties. It claims the city’s actions breached the inherent trust in the employer-employee relationship and caused ongoing harm, including potential identity theft and permanent loss of privacy.
It also says the city did not follow reasonable and best industry practices as well as did not properly train and supervise employees about data breaches.
In addition to seeking class certification, the complaint seeks compensatory damages, credit protection and credit monitoring services, security improvements including a device encryption security program, restitution and other relief.
Casebolt said the city has not seen the lawsuit and declined to comment on it.
The plaintiff is being represented by Troy Giatras and Matthew Stonestreet of The Giatras Law Firm in Charleston and by Michael Cary of Cary Law Office in Charleston. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Richard D. Lindsay.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 25-C-1283
