CHARLESTON – A surgeon accuses Charleston Area Medical Center of age discrimination and backing out of a promised job after acquiring the surgical hospital where he practices, then retaliating by squeezing his access to the operating room.
Dr. Paul Dean Kyer III filed his complaint June 2 in Kanawha Circuit Court against CAMC, Vandalia Health Inc. and Vandalia’s CAMC Health System as well as three senior executives. Kyer is a general surgeon and longtime Charleston Surgical Hospital shareholder.
In his complaint, Kyer alleges the dispute grew out of CAMC’s 2023 move to purchase a majority stake in Charleston Surgical Hospital, where his ownership interest generated about $240,000 a year that helped support his independent practice. As CAMC pursued the transaction, he says physician‑shareholders were told they would be offered employment with CAMC if they wished to stay, securing their work at the now CAMC‑controlled facility.
According to the filing, CAMC and Vandalia designated Charleston Surgical Hospital employee Christina Arvon as their liaison to physician owners and “cloaked” her with authority to communicate employment terms. Kyer claims Arvon repeatedly represented that CAMC had agreed to hire any physician who wanted to become an employee, and that every physician‑shareholder was offered a CAMC contract except those who voluntarily left CSH to pursue other opportunities.
Kyer and his wife, Liesa, who manages his practice, say they asked to see a written CAMC employment contract before he voted on the buyout. But he says Arvon “stonewalled” those requests while citing clerical issues. On Sept. 7, 2023, instead of a formal agreement, she allegedly emailed him a summary of key terms that Kyer says amounted to a binding employment offer that he accepted.
Those terms, as described in the complaint, included a one‑year salary guarantee, an initial term up to five years with a three‑year review, CME allowance and days, dues payments, 0.8 full‑time‑equivalent status at 32 hours per week, a base salary of $201,000 a year, a 3,200 RVU target, RVU compensation of $62.80 and paid time away from practice.
After the September 2023 email, Kyer says he began working with Vandalia Executive Vice President Jeffrey Goode on logistics such as office space and the buyout of his independent practice, which was to be folded into CAMC or moved to CAMC space.
In January 2024, CAMC Vice President for Ambulatory Services and Regional Hospitals Dr. E. Michael Robie told Kyer he would be the primary contact going forward and discussed steps for transitioning the practice.
The complaint says the tone changed during a March 1, 2024, phone call, when Goode allegedly told Kyer, “We are not used to hiring physicians at the stage of your career,” while discussing malpractice coverage options.
Kyer, who notes he was 61 at the time, alleges that remark reflects illegal age bias. After the call, he says CAMC and Vandalia began “distancing themselves” from him while invoking malpractice and office‑space issues to delay the hire.
Kyer says Robie continued through August and September 2024 to request data, exchange information and discuss office space options while saying the process was moving forward. On September 26, 2024, according to the complaint, Robie and the corporate defendants “expressly ratified” the earlier terms Arvon had communicated and followed up with an email summarizing the “essential terms” of Kyer’s employment.
Kyer says malpractice coverage never was a condition of his employment, noting CAMC/Vandalia already had agreed either to reimburse his premiums with his current carrier or add him to the system’s malpractice policy. He says he provided malpractice premium information in line with that agreement, and he says the defendants had known about the premium level “for some time” before late September 2024.
On September 30, 2024, Robie emailed Kyer to say his malpractice cost was “extremely high” and “may prohibit us from moving forward.” Kyer says that statement “shocked” him because it contradicted the prior understanding.
On October 29, 2024, Robie allegedly called to say CAMC and Vandalia would not honor the agreement and had decided not to hire him, citing malpractice as the reason.
When Kyer and his staff tried to engage Goode to discuss what he viewed as a breach of their agreement, he says Goode’s office ultimately responded that there was “nothing to discuss.” The complaint says Vandalia CEO and former CAMC Chief Financial Officer Jeff D. Sandene had the final say in the decision not to hire Kyer, with Goode and Robie involved. Kyer alleges he and another older physician‑shareholder were the only doctors seeking CAMC employment who were not hired.
“Plaintiff alleges defendants’ refusal to hire was motivated by plaintiff’s age, as evidenced by Goode’s statement that defendants were ‘not used to hiring physicians at the stage of your career,’ the subsequent pattern of delay and distancing, and the alleged pattern that the oldest physicians seeking employment were the only ones not hired,” the complaint states.
Kyer formally notified CAMC and Vandalia that he believed their refusal to employ him was unlawful age discrimination, and he says the defendants retaliated by undermining his independent practice at Charleston Surgical Hospital. He alleges the hospital, now majority owned by CAMC/Vandalia, has refused to schedule his surgeries, failed to provide adequate instrumentation, failed to schedule cases in a timely manner and created “unjustified logistical barriers” that interfered with his relationships with patients.
Those actions, he claims, constitute retaliation under the West Virginia Human Rights Act as well as tortious interference with business relations because CAMC and Vandalia are third parties to the doctor‑patient relationships at issue.
Kyer says the alleged conduct has caused him lost wages, diminished earning capacity, damage to his professional reputation and emotional distress as well as humiliation and loss of enjoyment of life.
He accuses the defendants of age discrimination and retaliation under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, breach of contract against CAMC and promissory estoppel and tortious interference with business relations.
He seeks compensatory damages for economic losses, including lost wages and loss of earning capacity, as well as non-economic damages for emotional distress and reputational harm, reliance damages, punitive damages, pre‑judgment interest, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
Kyer is being represented by Crystal Castleberry, who successfully represented a physician in a gender discrimination case against CAMC and others last year. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 26-C-693
