Candle factory hit by tornado facing workplace hazards lawsuit

Elijah Johnson, 20, was working the night shift at a Kentucky candle factory when the tornado hit on Dec. 11, 2021.  He was among the employees that filed the lawsuit alleging the candle company required them to continue working or face discipline despite the warnings of dangerous weather approaching.

The outbreak of tornadoes across five states was estimated to have caused at least $3.7 billion in damage.

Under state law, Kentucky employers must provide a workplace free from serious recognized hazards — “including tornados” — and to comply with rules and regulations under state safety and health program, the complaint says.

“Defendant had up to three and a half hours before the tornado hit its place of business to allow its employees to leave the worksite as a safety precaution,” the lawsuit shows.

According to the lawsuit, filed electronically in the Graves County Circuit Court, the defendants refused to let Johnson and 109 fellow employees leave before the tornado actually hit, despite having at least three hours of notice that the weather posed serious risk to the business and its employees.

Eight people have been confirmed dead.

“Thus, Defendant showed flagrant indifference to the rights of Plaintiff Johnson and to the other similarly situated Plaintiffs with a subjective awareness that such conduct will result in human death and/or bodily injuries,” the complaint says.

Supervisors are also accused of threatening disciplinary action if the employees left work early ahead of the severe weather.

The lawsuit references an Associated Press article where employee Haley Conder said she didn’t understand why the company did not encourage its employees to go home — or at least give them a better understanding of the anticipated danger — between a first tornado siren around 6 p.m. Friday and another around 9 p.m., prior to the tornado leveling the building.

Johnson joined other employees who were requesting to go home on Friday for fear of their safety.

“I asked to leave and they told me I’d be fired,” Johnson told NBC News about the conversation. “Even with the weather like this, you’re still going to fire me?”

“Yes,” a manager responded, Johnson said, adding managers “went so far to take a roll call in hopes of finding out who had left work.”

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages in an amount in excess of the minimum dollar amount needed to establish jurisdiction.

While the lawsuit was filed electronically just prior to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, it had yet to be file stamped because the courthouse remained closed due to damage from the tornado, said one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff, Amos Jones.

Jones said that employees allege serious violations of the law, including “a massive cover-up discovered within the last 24 hours with an incontrovertible smoking gun.”

Mayfield Consumer Products spokesman Bob Ferguson, who works for a public relations firm, denied that employees were stuck at the plant or face discipline, according to the Associated Press.

Jones had called for the company to retract such comments.

“Things have moved fast after a jarring refusal today by MCP to cease and desist smearing victims’ statements in the press,” Jones told Law.com on Wednesday.

Chris Talley, another public relations spokesman for the company, declined to comment on Wednesday prior to the lawsuit being filed. He could not immediately be reached for comment after the filing.

“Management at that factory caused, oversaw and facilitated a shirking of decency with regard to duties of care, and faithful employees are now injured or dead, two weekends before Christmas,” said William Davis, a Lexington-based attorney working with Jones. “And then, literally adding insult to injury, the owners had the nerve to hire a public-relations firm with funds that could have gone to supplementing those scores of $8/hour jobs lost due to the company shutdown caused by the storm’s destruction. Why?”

Hawksbill Group, a Washington D.C., public relations firm representing the company published a statement on behalf of the company’s CEO, Troy Propes, on Tuesday.

“We are immediately retaining an independent expert team to review the actions of our management team and employees on the evening when a tornado struck our facility,” Propes said. “We’re confident that our team leaders acted entirely appropriately and were, in fact, heroic in their efforts to shelter our employees. We are hearing accounts from a few employees that our procedures were not followed. We’re going to do a thorough review of what happened, and we’re asking these experts to critique our emergency plans and to offer any suggestions on ways they may be improved, if any.”

Propes added that the company also provided $1,000 to assist covering any short-term financial needs and it is expected to continue to provide additional support.

“I am committed to rebuilding in Mayfield/Graves County, and we are confident that over the long term will bring back 100% of our jobs,” he added.

The Mayfield Consumer Products factory was a long-standing partner with Bath & Body Works, which sells a wide variety of scented candles.