WHEELING — Former Wheeling University employees who are seeking compensation for their termination in 2019 will get their say in appellate court this fall.

The West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals has set a date for oral arguments in the case for Sept. 4.

The case was filed by Kathryn A. Voorhees, Jason Fuller, Jessica Wrobleski, Peter Ehni, Andrew Staron, Amy Criniti Phillips, Nancy Bressler, and John W. Whitehead III, according to court documents.

Four of the employees are said to have been tenured employees, while the other four were listed as being on tenure track, according to court documents.

The case was initially filed in Ohio County Circuit Court and assigned to Circuit Judge Ronald E. Wilson, who later found in the employees’ favor.

Parkersburg attorney Walt Auvil is representing the plaintiffs.

Auvil explained the issue being pressed by the plaintiffs surrounds language contained in WU’s employee handbook. Most employee handbooks contain disclaimers stating the employer has the right to change policy when they want to, but the WU book handbook did not, according to Auvil.

“This handbook was the reverse,” he noted. “It stated it was a contract.”

Among its provisions, the handbook stated if an employee were terminated for other than good cause, they would be entitled to pay due them for the remainder of the term. The university also reserved the right to call them back to work during the term.

“They (the university) didn’t do either one,” Auvil said. “They didn’t ask them to work, and they didn’t pay them.

“The employees then asked for terminal pay and they were told they were not getting it.”

In November 2021, Wheeling University — through Archbishop of Baltimore William Lori — requested summary judgment in the case. Wilson rendered his decision on Dec. 9, 2021 in favor of the employees.

He wrote that WU — known as Wheeling Jesuit University at the time of the case filing — had asked the court “to torture the language of the contract to suit its present needs.”

“Nothing feasibly links ‘financial exigency’ to ‘for cause’ terminations, even by the most strained reading of the defendant’s text,” Wilson wrote.

WU appealed the decision, and since that time, the West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals was established.

The appeals court took action to add it to its docket less than a month ago.

Officials at Wheeling University declined comment when contacted Thursday.