T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA A sign at the now-shuttered East Ohio Regional Hospital shows the services that are no longer available in Martins Ferry. Other upper Ohio Valley medical facilities are handling increased workloads as EORH patients seek care elsewhere.

MARTINS FERRY — As the lawsuit against East Ohio Regional Hospital continues to develop, lawyers have filed a new motion adding hospital owner and CEO Dr. John Johnson’s son, Nithin Johnson, to the list of defendants for his involvement in the hospital’s finances and operations.

The amended complaint alleges that Nithin Johnson served as a member of the board of advisers for the hospital and as an unofficial chief financial officer of EORH, making him liable for the same claims being made against his father and the hospital.

“It’s come to our attention from documents we’ve reviewed and interviews we’ve conducted that … Nithin Johnson was involved with the day-to-day operations and decision making process and was operating almost as a de facto CFO,” co-counsel Bob DeRose said of Nithin’s involvement with the hospital.

Nithin Johnson is also one of two directors of ArcBridge Capital LLC and a managing director of Patria Investments, based in New York City. Nithin Johnson allegedly used personal funds and these LLCs to help collateralize loans for the hospital with Belmont Savings Bank.

“When you peel back the layers of the onion you can see that there are individuals and companies and investment companies that were involved in commingling their money, coordinating their operations,” DeRose said. “They were acting as an employer under the statutes even though people may not have (thought of them as that) but that’s the way they were working.”

The amended complaint also alleges that John Johnson and Nithin Johnson tripled CFO Julie Ross’s pay and continued paying her full salary even when patient services at the hospital ceased and many employees were not receiving their paychecks.

Moundsville law firm Gold, Khourey and Turak and Columbus firm Barkan Meizlish DeRose Cox launched the class action lawsuit against the hospital. The team is now representing more than 200 former employees of EORH, over half of the roughly 400-member staff of the hospital.

Nithin Johnson did not hold a formal position with the company but was working with his father on financial and operational matters behind the scenes.

“It turns out if you take a look at it on the broader spectrum, some people’s paychecks and pay stubs had Dr. Johnson’s home address on them,” DeRose said. “This is all coming out of their family money and their family investments and I believe that once they knew that there was a financial problem it was ‘all hands on deck.’ The problem was they just weren’t looking out for the employees.”

The troubled Martins Ferry hospital shuttered suddenly in March after several facility closures and a series of layoffs, leaving many employees without jobs and several missed paychecks.

One of the main claims in the lawsuit is that EORH failed to give employees the federally mandated 60-day Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, notice of its closure and did not pay owed wages, among other violations.

The complaint also includes claims that the hospital was taking premiums from paychecks but not funding employee health insurance with them.

Just last week, John Johnson and EORH’s lawyer Priscilla Hapner responded to the initial complaint, largely denying the allegations on behalf of her clients.

The law firms invited EORH’s representation to agree to amend the complaint, which they declined to do.

“Which just further delays everything for the employees because the court will most likely end up granting it,” co-counsel Michelle Marinacci said. “So they’re just making the employees jump through yet another hoop.”

The next step in the legal proceedings will be a remote preliminary pretrial conference, slated for June 12 with Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Preston in Columbus.