Judge Sets Hearing Date for Fate of Historic W.V. Hotel
U.S. Senator Battling Texas Billionaire
By Jordan Bradley
A federal judge has set a date early next month for an evidentiary hearing that will decide the next chapter of the historic Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
The hotel is at the center of a contentious legal battle between its owners, U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, who was also the former governor of West Virginia, and the company holding its debt, TRT Holdings, owned by Texas billionaire Robert Rowling.
Justice and his family-led collection of businesses, Justice Family Group, LLC, have owned the Greenbrier since 2009, when the family purchased the property for approximately $20 million.
However, records show the resort has millions in outstanding debt in recent years, including tax liens on unpaid taxes in the amount of $2.36 million filed by the West Virginia Tax Division and more than $8 million filed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, both filed in October 2025.
On April 1, White Sulphur Springs Holdings (WSSH)—an affiliate of TRT Holdings, which owns Omni Hotels & Resorts—purchased nearly $300 million in first-lien debt on the Greenbrier Resort from previous lender Carter Bank & Trust, sending the Greenbrier into the headlines.
In an April 9 filing in the U.S. District Court Southern District of West Virginia, Beckley Division, WSSH is seeking to appoint a receiver to manage the Greenbrier’s assets “due to the waste, fraud and abuse of Defendants which threaten the value of its collateral” and to keep the Justices from “diverting substantial amounts of revenue generated from The Greenbrier Resort to their other, unrelated businesses.”
According to WSSH’s filing, members of the Justice family and their affiliated companies have been shown to be in “mounting financial and legal trouble,” citing a number of reports and articles, including a 2025 garnishment summons issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of West Virginia to Justice; an agreement reached between the IRS and the Justice family relating to nearly $5.2 million in unpaid taxes, “including taxes relating to The Greenbrier Resort; news articles from January alleging that the Greenbrier Hotel Corp. (a member of the Justice family’s portfolio of businesses), owed a Louisiana-based bank more than $47 million; among other allegations.
WSSH’s filing alleges that due to “the interrelatedness of the various businesses owned and operated by the Justice Party Defendants,” there is “evidence of financial malfeasance and potential fraud” amongst the Justice’s portfolio of businesses.
In order to protect the value of the Greenbrier, WSSH asked the court to immediately appoint Michelle Russo, CHAM, CHA, MAI, CEO of hotelAVE, as the property’s receiver in its filing.
In a countersuit filed in the Circuit Court of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, on April 12, the Justice family alleges that TRT Holdings, Rowling and WSSH are “attempting to snatch The Greenbrier resort from the local ownership of the Justice family by unlawful and deceptive means” by conspiring with Carter Bank and Trust, a longtime lender of the Justice family.
According to the filing, “form approximately 2001 through 2017, [Justice] had a close and successful business relationship with Worth Carter, founder of Defendant Carter” until Carter’s death in 2017. Since then, Justice claims in the filing, Carter Bank & Trust has “been relentlessly hostile” to the Justice family. Despite “consistent efforts to repay” their loans to Carter “in full,” the Justices claim, Carter Bank & Trust “has rebuffed those efforts.”
Justice in the filing claims that Carter Bank & Trust’s unwillingness to work with the family, and an alleged “reneging on its previous agreement that the Loans on The Greenbrier could be paid off for approximately $300 million and instead raised their payoff demand to approximately $360 million,” cost the family “several lenders” willing to pay off the debts.
The filing also alleges: “During 2026, Defendant Carter also consistently represented to The Greenbrier that Defendant Carter was not attempting to sell the Loans” as late as February 19. “Further, Defendant Carter purposely led The Greenbrier to believe that it would not sell the Loans as long as the sale process” of a minority-stake in the resort “was progressing.”
Justice also claims that Rowling and TRT misled Justice and used “confidential information it received, under false pretenses” in 2024 when TRT allegedly told Justice it was gathering information to support a private equity firm’s interest in investing in the Greenbrier.
At the time, TRT representatives “acquired confidential information that included proprietary pricing information, proprietary marketing and reservation information, confidential financial records, and access to areas of The Greenbrier resort complex that are off-limits to the public” divulged under a confidentiality agreement.
Representatives from the Greenbrier did not return USAE request for comment, but in a statement to Forbes said the resort “was and is in compliance with its obligations under the loans formerly held by Carter Bank,” and called TRT Holdings “a predatory out-of-state company.”
U.S. District Court Judge Frank Volk set an evidentiary hearing in federal court for May 11.
Judge Volk’s order noted that both WSSH’s and the Justice family’s legal representatives’ filings lacked polish and regard for proper procedure. At one point, Volk likened WSSH’s filing to “a research paper rather than a legal brief” and rebuffed a WSSH representative for phoning “a staff member in Chambers yesterday and [observing,] ‘I know how things are done here in the North, but I don’t know how they are done in the South.’”
“The parties’ filings agree on at least one point: This matter is of significant import not only to their clients but to the citizens of this State,” Volk wrote.
“Accordingly, the Court will expect the filings and conduct of counsel going forward to satisfy the highest professional standards contemplated by the governing federal, state, and local rules, along with any orders of the Court entered now or hereafter.”
