By Debbie Hall
A Patrick Springs resident is seeking more than $5.7 million from Patrick County.
David Kuser, plaintiff, named the county and Ron Knight as the defendant in a complaint dated March 6 and filed in the Patrick County Circuit Court clerk’s office.
Knight is a county employee assigned to work at the Transfer Station in Stuart.
Kuser presented a copy of the complaint to the Patrick County Board of Supervisors at the board’s March 9 meeting.
Kuser alleged in the complaint that in his role as manager of the Transfer Station, Knight received 14.69 tons of adulterated (poor quality) potatoes from Eagle Eye Produce on Nov. 27, 2019. The potatoes were deemed to be adulterated that day by Woods Produce in Meadows of Dan and earlier that week by the U.S. Armed Forces in Norfolk, Virginia, the complaint alleged.
Eagle Eye Produce, of Idaho, paid the county $807.95 to dispose of the potatoes in the landfill, according to a receipt included with the complaint.
According to the complaint, Kuser alleged that “Knight informed the Patrick County public that he just got a load of free potatoes in and come and get them.”
Kuser alleged that he was told a local food bank received 700 pounds of the potatoes, “and that cars were lined up out to the road waiting to get free potatoes” from the landfill, according to the complaint.
A photo included with the filing allegedly shows Knight carrying a bag of potatoes from a pallet of potatoes, which were in front of a sign stating “No Salvaging of Food Items.” The sign was required by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services AFIS (food, safety and security) after two previous violations in May, 2017, according to the complaint.
A copy of a certified mailing dated May 8, 2017 was included with the complaint. The letter, from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services/Division of Animal and Food Industry Services, was addressed to Dale Puckett.
It stated, in part: “This letter is in reference to the investigation conducted by VDACS Food Safety Specialist Snead on may 3, 2017 regarding watermelons that were condemned and removed from commerce, then subsequently put back into commerce and otherwise made available for consumption. Upon removing the watermelons from the location of discard, the melons met the definition in law of adulterated foods. … Any person who engages in the unlawful act of delivering, holding or offering for sale any food that is adulterated is guilty of a Class I misdemeanor. This includes offering such adulterated foods to individuals for their consumption free of charge. It would be advisable that you avoid engaging in this unlawful act at any future time.”
In the complaint, Kuser alleged that “as a proximate result of the above-described unlawful act of delivering, holding or offering free adulterated food for human consumption,” he suffered from consuming potatoes on Thanksgiving, 2019, and a week after that.
He alleged in the complaint that he suffered from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdomen and back pain, “along with anxiety, mortification, emotional distress, all to my damage in $5,876,000,” according to the complaint.
“The above described was with malice toward plaintiff (Kuser), by the defendants. Because f defendants malice, plaintiff seeks punitive damages to be established by proof at trail (sic),” the complaint stated.
In addition to punitive damages, Kuser also seeks compensatory damages according to proof, interest as allowed by law, the cost of the suit and other relief the court deems proper, according to the complaint.
In a letter to the supervisors dated March 9, Kuser stated that he is founder/director of Robyn’s Haven, a Patrick Springs Animal Welfare nonprofit corporation.
While the investigation and lawsuit involves the alleged unlawful distribution of unadulterated potatoes, Kuser asked the board to have a Patrick County Sheriff assigned to the Transfer Station “A. to make shore (sic) that no more adulterated food leaves the Transfer Station; B. verbal and/or physical that I and Other people have endure (sic) in the past by County Employees of the transfer station; C. On Tuesday, March 3, 2020, I witnessed a Transfer Station Employee take 3 cans of paint from a car and wake (sic) pass me, throw them into trailer being filled with trash.”
Kuser also requested the county assign a deputy sheriff to board meetings.
Law enforcement officers currently attend supervisor meetings.
