Former COO alleges Jushi fired him for trying to maintain safety measures

Jushi Holdings (OTC: JUSHF) faces a lawsuit from its former chief operating officer, Todd West, for wrongful termination. The case was moved to a federal court this week. West claims he was fired by the company when CEO Jim Cacioppo disagreed with the safety measures West believed were necessary.

West joined the company in April 2024 after Jushi terminated the heads of manufacturing and cultivation operations. In the lawsuit, he claimed the roles were never filled, and so he took on the job of ensuring safety and compliance within the facilities himself. West claimed he hired consulting firm Data Extraction Consulting in September 2024 to review Jushi’s lab operations and its standard operating procedures.

Nevada lab problems

West claims that he visited the company’s facilities in Reno, Nevada, which were experiencing several safety issues, including issues that resulted in the fire department responding to the location more than eight times due to the lab’s alarms triggering for high levels of gas in the lab environment.

The complaint states that the company shut down the extraction booth to address the safety deficiencies identified by another consulting firm, PSI, around July 2024. West said in the filing that he believes the lab remains shut down.

Pennsylvania problems

The complaint also states that PSI made recommendations about the company’s Pennsylvania lab, which was shut down around July 2024 to give the company a chance to bring everything into compliance. The complaint states that the lab remained shut down for approximately four weeks before reopening.

In November 2024, the facility experienced a pump gasket and seal that had blown within the facility’s hydrocarbon booth. This happened after the facility faced multiple pump failures during October 2024. The staff told West it was having a hard time reaching Isolate Extraction Systems (IES) to get a new seal. The company found another seal that could be used for the repair, but it wasn’t an original equipment manufacturer part.

According to the complaint, West contacted the Data Extraction Consulting firm that recommended shutting down the equipment until an OEM part could be used. The consultant said that the company could “risk death if someone were in the same room with the pump while the seal failed. Specifically, a seal could fail under high pressure, causing a part to dislodge, which could maim or kill a person in the room with equipment.”

Then, Jushi learned that IES went bankrupt and closed, and they wouldn’t be able to get the replacement part. West decided to close the facility. He claims that when Cacioppo learned of his decision, he berated him, saying, “I am not in this business to not make money.”

West claims he felt the company’s license would be at risk if they cut corners and an incident occurred that would put human life at risk. He said he was assured his job was secure and that Cacioppo was just ‘blowing off steam.’

More problems

West also faced the closure of an Ohio facility, where a part needed to be replaced, and a similar issue at the company’s Virginia facility, which was also closed for a short time as the company tried to find compliant parts for equipment.

West claims in his complaint that just two weeks after the Pennsylvania blowup, Jushi Chief Financial Officer Michelle Mosier emailed Toya Bellamy-Lockhart, Jushi’s vice president of human resources, to discuss his approach to repairs. That conversation suggested that Cacioppo wanted to spend the necessary money on equipment to keep the facility operating and keep sales steady, whereas West wanted to transition away from CO2 machines, which was a longer-term decision.

He also said they claimed that the consultants West hired were former colleagues from his time at Cresco Labs, where he had been COO. They claim the consultant’s advice was impractical and would hurt the company’s revenue. Mosier also suggested in an email that West didn’t grasp the impact of the repairs on the company’s sales.

She wrote:

Several people, including myself, have had discussion with him to explain that it’s worth spending the $150K today to secure sales for the next couple of quarters.

Termination

By December 2024, West received a letter stating, “Failure to substantially improve your performance in the next 21 days will result in the termination of your employment for Cause.” To be fired for cause would cost West some of his compensation, and with the Christmas holiday, he had little time to respond to the letter.

The complaint claims that on Jan. 6, West informed the company that his doctor advised a short leave of absence, but instead of providing him with the proper paperwork to take the leave, the company terminated him.

West claims the firing has cost him $600,000.