Gov. Jim Justice stands with his family — daughter Jill, wife Cathy and son Jay — at his final State of the State address in Charleston, W.Va., on Jan. 10, 2024. (Office of the Gov. Jim Justice)

Federal attorneys asking a court to hold 23 of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s family-owned coal companies in contempt for nonpayment of health and safety fines entered a filing this week saying the companies shouldn’t have entered into a payment plan if they knew they couldn’t honor it.

The filing, entered Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia and first reported by West Virginia MetroNews, comes in response to a memorandum filed last week by Justice family attorneys. In that filing, they contend that the companies in question are too broke to pay the nearly $600,000 they still owe to the government.

In Tuesday’s filing, the federal attorneys say this claim has been made with no evidence and, as such, should not be considered as a valid defense against putting the companies in contempt. Further, the companies should not have entered into a settlement agreement in 2020 if they knew they would not be able to pay what they owe on the set schedule.

“[The companies] willingly and knowingly entered into the payment plan and consent judgment in this case, representing to the government and the Court that it would comply with the payment plan in the consent judgment,” the filing reads. “However, they now claim that they faced financial difficulties at the time of the consent judgment that preclude them from being able to pay. If [the companies] knew they could not comply with the consent judgment at the time of execution, they should have said so.”

In 2023, according to the filing, representatives for the Justice companies told the government that they “had difficulty” making payments, but that the situation would be remedied by borrowing money from another business to catch up on payments. Federal representatives agreed at that time to adjust the payment plan.

“Yet once again, [the companies] failed to comply with the adjusted payment plan. [They] have not provided any explanation for their noncompliance,” the federal attorneys write. “Between August 2023 and?present, [the companies] did not communicate to the government an inability to pay on the modified schedule, nor did they seek alternative payment arrangements with the government.”

In a memorandum earlier this month asking the court to hold the companies in contempt, federal attorneys provided dozens of emails sent between Aug. 14, 2023 and July 9, 2024 reminding the companies of their debts and the past due amounts.

Responses from the companies’ attorneys were few, even as the companies fell months behind on their payments.

“Instead of notifying the government about their alleged inability to comply with the consent judgment, [the companies] have kept their proverbial heads in the sand,” the federal attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s filing. “Even when the government notified Defendants in July 2024 that the government would have no choice but to seek action with the Court unless payment in full was made, [they] offered no explanation or response.”

In last week’s memorandum from the Justice companies, attorneys argued that it would be improper to hold the companies in contempt since their financial struggles are not self-inflicted and have existed since they agreed upon the payment plan. They said the economic downturn in the coal industry is to blame for the financial challenges at the companies. The federal government, they continue, was aware of these challenges.

Since payments were being made — albeit sporadically — from 2020 on, the feds argued Tuesday that this defense shouldn’t stand.

Also in last week’s memorandum, Justice family attorneys requested discovery for the ongoing case. While alleging a dire financial situation at the companies, they did not provide any exhibits or evidence to back up this claim in their filing.

In Tuesday’s filing, federal attorneys say that the request for discovery is “unnecessary and a delay tactic.” The companies, they say, are responsible for proving they are unable to meet their financial obligations and evidence underscoring that claim can be presented at a hearing for the case if it exists.

The nearly $600,000 the federal government is seeking to collect comes from a decade’s worth of unpaid health and safety fines at Justice-owned coal mines. The debt, at one point, totaled about $5.13 million from hundreds of violations incurred since 2014.

The government initially filed suit against the Justices in 2019 to collect the money. In 2020, the Justice-owned companies and the government entered into an agreement where the family would make monthly payments to pay off the debt by March 2024. The debt, however, was not paid off.

Justice has maintained that he is not at all directly involved in his family’s business empire, leaving the companies in the leadership of his children despite refusing to enter most of his businesses into a blind trust.

He said earlier this month that, “if there’s a problem, it gets taken care of … We may be a few minutes late to the fire, but we always show up at the fire.”

Last week, however, Jay Justice — Jim Justice’s son and president of several of the family’s companies — failed to “show up at the fire.”

A federal judge in Alabama filed an order last Thursday finding Jay Justice and Bluestone Coke — of which he is president — in civil contempt.

The order, according to Inside Climate News, came after Jay Justice failed to attend a hearing — despite being ordered to do so by the federal court — for a lawsuit alleging the coking plant is responsible for polluting groundwater and rivers and violating the Clean Water Act.

“[Jay Justice and Bluestone Coke] have violated three separate court orders requiring them to produce responses and negotiate, in good faith, dates for depositions,” the order reads.

The story is republished from West Virginia Watch, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.