TCT lawsuit granted class certification

According to an order signed by District Judge Norman Young on May 25, a lawsuit filed by Joe and Barbara Campbell against Tri-County Telephone Association (TCT) co-operative, a motion for class certification was granted.

The Campbells, named as the plaintiffs in the case, were also approved as an adequate representative of the class defined as 825 former members (more or less) of TCT, according to the order.

It was further ordered that TCT and the individually named defendants, including TCT CEO Chris Davidson, CFO Steve Harper, and former board members Dalin Winters, Clifford Alexander, J.O. Sutherland, Daniel Greet and John K. Johnson, and Neil Schlenker, purchaser of the member-owned cooperative, shall cooperate and disclose to the plaintiffs the names and addresses of potential class members so they can be identified and notified of the class certification.

Potential class members will have opportunity to request exclusion from the class, and those who don’t make such requests will be included.

Litigation began against TCT in December of 2015, when the Campbells filed a suit claiming TCT board members robbed owners of the co-operative of the value of their interests when the co-op was sold in 2014. TCT later filed its own complaint alleging Joe, a former TCT board member, maintained control of a company laptop and took advantage of trade secrets on the computer and shared that information with others, causing fiduciary damage to TCT and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Jury trial in TCT’s complaint against the Campbells is currently scheduled to begin Feb. 11, 2019.