Dent v. Kaufman

NEELY, Justice:

We are asked to decide whether all employees of a corporate defendant are “parties” to a lawsuit for the purposes of W.Va. Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 4.2 [1988],

On 11 August 1990, defendant, Fruth Pharmacy, Inc. fired plaintiff, Dorothy Dent, a cashier in its store located on Oak-wood Road in Charleston, West Virginia, allegedly for negligence and violations of company policy. According to defendants, Ms. Dent’s cash drawer was $3.18 over at the end of the day on 11 August 1990. The store claims that when Ms. Dent made a sale to an undercover investigator hired by the…