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Former IMS employees sue owners for back pay

By Lisa Majors-Duff
Rebecca Dutsch removing the Immediate Med Services company logo - Herald photo by Lisa Majors-Duff

Rebecca Dutsch of Andrews, whose mother, Kathy Dutsch, did not receive a paycheck for three weeks in December from her employer, Immediate Med Services, began removing the company logo from the Main Street store front Friday. Dutsch and more than 20 of her colleagues filed suit against IMS owners, Lynden and Donna Hall, to collect salaries owed them.



Former Immediate Med Services employees filing suit - Herald photo by Lisa Majors-Duff

A line of more than 20 former Immediate Med Services employees kept clerks at the Jackson County Justice Center busy for most of Friday morning as they filed suits against the company and its owners for three weekıs worth of back pay from December. A hearing is scheduled before a magistrate on Feb. 3.

More than 20 former employees of a Sylva-based medical service provider filed suit Friday against the company's owner for three weeks worth of back wages.

Most employees with Immediate Med Services in Sylva, Andrews, Asheville and Charlotte learned they would not be paid for time worked the day checks were due, they said. Their individual suits against the company and its registered owners, Lynden and Donna Hall of Sylva, were filed Friday in small claims court.

"As employees we feel we need to stand up for ourselves," Donna Kays, a former IMS service administrator, said. "We are not being assured we will get our money."

The reason given employees for the absent paychecks ranged from trouble collecting for contracted services to the business's probable bankruptcy. The amount of employee checks not delivered after Christmas ranged from about $800 to more than $4,000.

In a statement to The Herald Monday, Lynden Hall wrote: "In a legal agreement, Donna and I sold Immediate Med Services Inc. on Sept. 29, 1999. Effective that day we transferred complete ownership and resigned as directors, shareholders and employees of Immediate Med Services, Inc. "Since Sept. 29 Donna and I have had no authority, control or have been involved in any decision or day-to-day operations carried out by the owner or managers of Immediate Med Services."

In a follow-up telephone interview, Hall said the legal agreement to sell his business precluded him from saying to whom he sold the company.

But employees tell a different story about their understanding of who owns Immediate Med Services. "Lynden told the employees in October that Kole Clapsaddle was a major stockholder and that Lynden would still serve on the board," said Kays. "Our last paychecks (in November) were signed by Lynden Hall."

Clapsaddle had not responded to repeated phone calls from The Herald by presstime Wednesday.

Hall said he is unclear why his name is still being used in association with IMS, including the state and local licenses to do business that list him as the company's owner. It is his understanding, he said, that the new owner was charged with changing these documents.
In the meantime, ComServ, a private, non-profit organization based in Morganton, has hired most of IMS's habilitation assistants and has opened an office in Sylva at the former IMS Main Street address. All physical traces of IMS was removed last week, when everything from window paint to door locks were changed.

"We were asked by the area mental health programs to provide the same services (as IMS)," said ComServ President Wayne Williams. "They heard (IMS) was no longer doing business and called us."

ComServ has been in business in Western North Carolina for 10 years, Williams said, and the company plans to respond to any and all requests for services.

"We are still receiving such requests," he said. "We can expand and want to do so."

ComServ received high praise from former IMS employees as they prepared court documents at the Justice Center Friday. "(ComServ) took over Dec. 27, and we now have excellent benefits," said one new ComServ employee.

Both ComServ and Smoky Mountain Center, one of the area agencies that receives contracted habilitation services for its clientele, have advanced funds so that employees could continue to perform their duties. In addition to needing money for everything from rent to food to heat, one employee would not have been able to work without gasoline for her car.

Habilitation assistants do most of their work in a client's home. The service is provided to keep mentally and physically-impaired individuals at home and out of institutions, said Steve Brady, a former IMS supervisor who estimated the total payroll due employees at more than $135,000.

"From our end we saw a lack of organization," Brady said of the company's finanical problems. "I don't think Lynden intentionally tried to defraud anyone. It was just mismanagement."

Both Kays and Brady said they hoped their actions and those of their colleagues - both in talking to the media and filing suit against the company - would not jeopardize their effort to receive their back pay, but they know that if the company files for bankruptcy, the employees will be forced to get in line with other creditors owed funds by IMS.

"We've been told that they are trying to collect from the contracts," Kays said. "We hope their intentions are good." The timing of the absent paychecks could not have been worse, the former IMS employees said. Some said it felt like a death in the family; other expressed regret at the spending they'd done in preparation for their families' Christmas celebrations.

"I wouldn't have spent as much on Christmas if I'd known," one employee said. "I have two kids, and I had to postpone my youngest son's birthday party because I couldn't afford to buy him a present. I've even had to go to Social Services for emergency funds."

"I think it's terrible that a company that supports the disabled would disable its employees," said Jo Lynn Woods of Andrews, who worked for IMS for two years as a habilitation assistant.

None of those at the Justice Center last Friday expressed much hope at collecting the money due them. Their main reason for filing the suits, they said, "is to send a message to big businss that you can't treat your employees this way."

Heather Wilson of Sylva, a recent college graduate, said this experience has taught her to be less trusting of others. "I've learned that not everyone is in this profession to help people," she said.

Hall said he plans to attend the Feb. 3 hearings scheduled before a Jackson County magistrate. "The truth will come out and justice will prevail," he said. "The truth is all I've got."

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