With a total of seven plaintiffs that have filed antitrust lawsuits against West Virginia Paving in the past two weeks, the city of Charleston filed a motion to transfer and consolidate all the related cases in Kanawha County Circuit Court on Wednesday.
After the cities of Charleston, Beckley, Bluefield and Parkersburg filed suits against West Virginia Paving and several of its sister companies in their respective county courts on Oct. 12, the state Department of Transportation and Division of Highways, Kanawha County Commission and City of Huntington also filed their own civil actions.
The motion to consolidate was made by attorneys with Bailey & Glasser law firm, which is representing the plaintiffs.
The motion references West Virginia's Rules of Civil Procedure, which states "the court in which the first such action was commenced shall order all the actions transferred to it or any other court in which any such action is pending."
The main reason for consolidating the cases is to avoid unnecessary costs and multiple trials.
"Scheduling seven depositions of each defense witnesses in each of the seven civil actions will be incredibly time consuming and difficult," the motion says, adding that holding seven different trials "involving largely the same facts and legal principles would be unduly costly and inefficient."
Three of the seven complaints were filed in Kanawha County Circuit court.
The motion filed on Wednesday also identifies the defendants' attorneys.
Former West Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Booth Goodwin is representing West Virginia Paving, Inc., Southern West Virginia Paving, Inc., Southern West Virginia Asphalt, Inc. and Camden Materials, LLC.
Charles Johnstone is representing American Asphalt and Aggregate, Inc., American Asphalt of West Virginia, LLC and Blacktop Industries and Equipment Company.
"I'm happy to represent good corporate citizens who provide critical services to our state and our communities and provide quality jobs to 350 West Virginians," Goodwin said in a statement on Wednesday.
West Virginia Paving is accused of creating a "brazen statewide monopolization scheme" that illegally inflated the cost of asphalt, forcing the plaintiffs to pay up to 40 percent more for it than they should have.
In many of the areas where cities have filed cases against the company, West Virginia Paving owns more than 80 percent of the market share.
Yeager Airport is expected to join the list of plaintiffs, after the airport's board authorized its attorney to file suit against West Virginia Paving during a meeting Wednesday.
Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.