East Ohio Hospital Lawsuit Against Dr. John Johnson

More than 200 former employees of East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry are suing the shuttered facility, its owner and CEO Dr. John A. Johnson, his son Nithin Johnson, and several related entities over unpaid final wages, health insurance premiums that were deducted from paychecks but allegedly never forwarded to the insurer, and a mass closure carried out without the 60-day notice federal law requires. The East Ohio Regional Hospital lawsuit, filed as Shields et al v. East Ohio Hospital, LLC et al in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, was paused for months by an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding and is positioned to move forward now that the bankruptcy case was dismissed on February 9, 2026.¹²

What the Employees Are Suing Over

Five named plaintiffs — Heather Shields, Morgan Bleininger, Jessica Harding, Starr Wise, and Jennifer Myers — filed the class-action complaint on April 4, 2025, under the Fair Labor Standards Act. By mid-May, more than half of the hospital’s roughly 400-person workforce had joined.³ The complaint groups the alleged misconduct into four categories:

Unpaid wages for employees’ final weeks of work.
Violations of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires 60 days’ advance notice before a mass layoff.
Health insurance premiums deducted from paychecks and allegedly never forwarded to the insurance provider, leaving employees without the coverage they had paid for.
Unpaid working lunches, with time deducted for breaks employees were required to work through.

The plaintiffs are seeking all unpaid wages, WARN Act penalties, and additional damages for the labor law violations.⁴ They are represented by Gold, Khourey & Turak of Moundsville and Barkan Meizlish DeRose Cox of Columbus.⁵

Who the Defendants Are

The original defendants were East Ohio Hospital, LLC (doing business as East Ohio Regional Hospital), Dr. John A. Johnson, and Access Ohio, LLC, a related healthcare entity Johnson controlled.⁶ Dr. Johnson, a psychiatrist with an MBA, had bought the closed hospital property and reopened it in 2020.⁷

An amended complaint added Dr. Johnson’s son, Nithin Johnson. Although Nithin held no formal title at the hospital, the complaint alleges he sat on the hospital’s board of advisers and functioned as a “de facto CFO” involved in day-to-day financial and operational decisions. Co-counsel Bob DeRose said documents and interviews showed Nithin worked with his father “behind the scenes” on financial matters.⁸ A second amended complaint filed on August 22, 2025, formally added Nithin Johnson, Access Martins Ferry, LLC, and ArcBridge Capital, LLC as defendants.¹

Those added entities matter because the plaintiffs are arguing that the hospital’s finances were blended with the Johnson family’s personal and investment accounts. The complaint alleges that Nithin used personal funds and two entities he managed — ArcBridge Capital, described on its own website as the “investment advisory entity of the Johnson family office,” and New York City-based Patria Investments — to help collateralize hospital loans from Belmont Savings Bank. The complaint also alleges that money was “commingled” between the hospital and the Johnsons’ private investment entities, and points out that some employee pay stubs bore Dr. John Johnson’s home address rather than the hospital’s. It further alleges that the Johnsons tripled the pay of CFO Julie Ross and continued paying her a full salary after patient services had stopped and other employees were going unpaid.⁸³

How the Hospital and Dr. Johnson Responded

The hospital, Dr. Johnson, and Access Ohio filed responses through attorney Priscilla Hapner and broadly denied every allegation. Dr. Johnson’s primary argument has been that the hospital, not he personally, was the employees’ employer. The hospital challenged the plaintiffs to prove they had not been paid.⁶⁹

What Triggered the Closure and Missed Pay

The claims trace to a short, compressed collapse. In early March 2025, employees shared documents indicating their health insurance had been terminated on February 17, even though premiums had been deducted from paychecks for the pay period ending February 15.¹⁰ On March 7, employees missed an expected payday. Staff staged a protest on March 12, with one employee reporting she was owed for 192 hours of work. Management described the missed pay as a “payroll glitch.” The next day, Dr. Johnson announced layoffs in an email, saying they were meant to “assist with the prioritization of payroll disbursement.” The hospital officially closed on March 20, 2025.¹¹ No 60-day WARN notice preceded that shutdown, which is the foundation of the plaintiffs’ WARN Act claim.

The Bankruptcy That Paused the Case

On August 28, 2025, former employees filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against East Ohio Hospital, LLC in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Plaintiffs’ counsel said the goal was to protect employee wage claims and force transparency over the hospital’s remaining finances; under federal bankruptcy law, unpaid wages can receive priority status over other unsecured debts when the proceeding begins within 180 days of the wages becoming due. The day after the filing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Tiffany Strelow Cobb appointed an interim trustee, finding that the hospital’s current management was “not well suited” to protect its assets.¹²

The bankruptcy triggered an automatic stay of the federal employment lawsuit, and on September 8, 2025, Judge Michael H. Watson formally stayed the district court case. The bankruptcy itself was ultimately classified as a “no asset” case: the Chapter 7 trustee collected roughly $90,853, but all funds were reported as returned or transferred, leaving a zero balance. The court granted a motion to dismiss the bankruptcy on February 9, 2026, and the case was formally closed on February 13, 2026.¹²

Where the Case Stands Now

The suit against Dr. Johnson, Nithin Johnson, and the other non-hospital defendants remains active in U.S. District Court in Columbus. As of late September 2025, the defense attorney for the hospital, Dr. Johnson, and Access Ohio had withdrawn from the case, and the court warned that failure to retain new counsel could result in a default judgment. A motion to dismiss filed by Access Ohio and Dr. Johnson was held in abeyance pending resolution of the bankruptcy stay. With the bankruptcy dismissed in February 2026, the path is open for the employment litigation to resume.¹¹²

Other Legal Troubles Around the Same Facts

The employee lawsuit is not the only matter tied to the closure. Belmont County Treasurer Katherine Kelich initiated foreclosure proceedings in May 2025 after the hospital failed to make even the second installment of a 36-month plan to repay $1.2 million in delinquent property taxes.⁷¹³¹⁴

Dr. Johnson also had a prior federal settlement on his record. In September 2021, he agreed to pay over $400,000 to the United States and the State of Ohio to resolve allegations that he had submitted false claims to Medicare and Ohio Medicaid for unnecessary diagnostic testing between 2014 and 2019.¹⁵

1
Justia Dockets. Shields et al v. East Ohio Hospital LLC et al
2
BKAlerts. Bankruptcy Case: East Ohio Hospital LLC
3
Times Leader. CEO’s Son Added to List of Defendants in EORH Lawsuit
4
Becker’s Hospital Review. Shuttered Ohio Hospital Disputes Lawsuit Allegations
5
The Intelligencer. More Than 200 Former Employees Now Part of EORH Lawsuit
6
WTOV9. Hospital and EORH Executives Deny Claims by Over 200 Employees in Amended Complaint Case
7
The Intelligencer. Signs of Life: East Ohio Regional Hospital Has New Owner Who Wants to Reopen It by Fall
8
The Intelligencer. East Ohio Regional Hospital CEO’s Son Added to List of Defendants in Lawsuit
9
Times Leader. EORH Denies Claims in Lawsuit
10
WTOV9. Foreclosure Threat Looms Over East Ohio Regional Hospital Amid Tax and Insurance Woes
11
WTOV9. East Ohio Regional Hospital Closing
12
The Intelligencer. Former East Ohio Regional Hospital Employees File Involuntary Bankruptcy Petition, Interim Trustee Named
13
The Intelligencer. Belmont Savings Bank Files Complaint Against EORH Over Unpaid Loans
14
WTRF. Ohio Hospital Hit With Court Order After Belmont Bank Claims $2M Loan Default
15
WTOV9. East Ohio Regional Hospital Employees Still Unpaid Amid Financial Woes