Clay County Development Corporation, we called it CDC, operated for decades in their own little world. The public, members of it's board, employees,  knew a bunch of crappy stuff was going on. Lawsuits came and went. Cash pay outs had to be paid compliments Court decisions. It was a sad time in Clayberry. In Nov 2016, that all changed.
   Compliments racist postings on Facebook the morning after the Presidential election, and with the world watching, everything changed. The CDC Director was caught making racist comments about Michelle Obama. In the spotlight of national media, she was tossed from office. During the firing of Pam Taylor, two other long time leaders were also removed from duty.
  With the head of the snake severed, outside regulators and funders came in and audited the books and practices. Outside leadership took over CDC operations for months. What they found was a senior service provider financially crumbling and on its knees , deep in debt to the Federal Govt.
  Those findings and the CDC demise is now three years in the history books.
   Since then, Board meetings have been held in public, there was a change in leadership and practices. Financial reports were made public. Overdue tax burdens are now being paid and or have been paid off. So tarnished was the CDC name, it was retired. A new name Clay Senior and Community Services (CSCS)  was approved by the Board and is now in use. New bylaws provide the Board of Directors with control and the old General Membership and their annual meeting, pushed off to the side and nearly powerless.

  High accolades have been given to the newly organized group, CSCS. From the outside looking in, it appeared, the old ways were long gone. What a nice and needed turnaround!

   On July 3, 2019, a lawsuit was filed against the CSCS as a group and Director Duffield individually. We had not heard about the suit until this week. During the monthly Board meetings we attended, there was no mention made of the suit. Not a peep. The lawsuit was brought by former employee Jennifer Dunn with lawyerly help by Kristian Thomas Whiteaker with the Grubb Law Group in Charleston. From the public file: As a direct result of the Defendant's discriminatory, unlawful, reckless, willful and negligent actions, Plaintiff [Ms Duffield] suffered compensatory loss including but not limited to wage loss, emotional and mental distress, aggravations, humiliation, embarrassment, anxiety, annoyance and inconvenience.
   From the 50 findings of fact, we're providing several for your edimacation.
   Dunn, a registered nurse, was hired as a waiver nurse over the home caregivers.  She was not provided any formal policies a list of her duties nor a job description
  Dunn and others were required to maintain time sheets which were turned in every two weeks to Leslie McGlothlin
  Director Stephanie Duffield had the position of waiver nurse before being promoted to director.
  Duffield was often absent from work and behaved in an unprofessional manner
  In Nov 2018, several employees asked Duffield about getting raises, Ms Duffield reacted angrily and told employees that "no one was getting a raise.
  Duffield further told employees that they were not allowed to talk to Boardsters ...
  Stephanie Duffield would leave the office for hours during the work day to do personal errands
  She would drive to Southridge WalMart to have her nails done.
  Duffield would also leave the office frequently for other personal errands and spent time while at the office on her side business, selling products on the internet.
  She also had a make up station set up in the office and would spend hours at a time applying elaborate make up at work
  Duffield also had a bean bag chair in the office where she would take naps during the day
  Ms Duffield treated employees including Dunn in an unfair manner, including intermittently scrutinizing time sheets and arbitrarily docking wags
  Even those employees were all required to submit time sheets, Duffield apparantly kept her own records of employee time based on her beliefs and observances when she was in the office
   Ms Duffield did not deduct the hours she was absent from work or spent time on non work activities from her time sheets
  IF any employee would go to the post office or come in a few minutes late, Duffield would dock their time on what she wrote in her notes.
  In Jan 2019 Dunn realized wages had been docked approximately 30 minutes at a time on several occasions.
  Duffield told Dunn that she kept her own records of the employees' time and she could dock them for time they were not working
  Dunn thinks Duffield's notes are not accurate since she was absent from the office often.
  During staff meetings, Ms Duffield often told employees that she was an hourly employee also and that she had to keep track of her time "just like you"
  After having her pay docked, Dunn noticed  and wrote down Duffield's  time since she had mentioned several times that she was hourly...
  Dunn made notes on Duffield's work time for about wo weeks
   During that time, Duffield was out of the office for a hair appointment for over three hours, was late for work at least three times, left work early at least two times, and took off at least two work days.
  On Feb 20 2019, Duffield's time sheet was laying on top of a file cabinet and Dunn  saw Duffield had only used one hour of personal time during the two weeks in which she had been keeping track
  Ms Dunn took a picture of the time sheet with her cell phone.
  Dunn sent Duffield a text asking her f she was supposed to record her time out of the office on her time sheets like other employees. She also texted the photo of the time sheet....
  Two weeks later, on March 6th 2019, Jennifer Dunn was fired.

 Readers, the long list of findings of fact continued. If you would like to see the entire document, it's a public record and can be read from the public puter terminal in the Circuit Clerk's office. And or, for a fee, they will print out the entire 8 page filing
 

  Ms Dunn is seeking a declaratory judgment and be awarded appropriate damages and compensation. There is no dollar amount listed in the document.
  Judge Jack Alsop has ordered that both parties enter into mediation ahead of the hearing date, Oct 2 2020 at  1pm.
  True we didn't write down all the findings but we have included some of the juicy stuff. Since this is Ms Dunn's side of the battle, it is one sided.
  Sadly, many of the findings of fact ring similar to practices alleged under the Family Clan operated , CDC. If true, that's very sad for the every senior citizen in Clayberry.
AW