Suit: MetroCenter exec ordered employee to defy flood evacuation

Thomas Wood on a pending lawsuit in Davidson County Circuit Court:

With flood waters threatening to overwhelm the levee that protects the MetroCenter commercial district from the Cumberland River, police were ordering a complete evacuation of the 800-acre development. But on his cell phone, the president of the company Jones worked for was telling him to instruct employees to evade the cops and get to work.

Jones says he did as the cops told him to do — and that his boss responded by summarily dismissing him from his production supervisor position at Shared Hospital Services Corp.

The president of SHSC is not named in the lawsuit Jones filed against the hospital laundry service July 21 in Davidson County Circuit Court, but documents in a prior lawsuit identify him as George W. Wade, the name currently listed with the Tennessee Register of Deeds as registered agent of the company.

The legal complaint says Jones let the president know that Metro Police safety cones were blocking off access to SHSC’s Mainstream Drive facility. The boss nevertheless told Jones “to inform all employees to come to work” and to get around the traffic cones by driving through the Comcast parking lot across the street and then turning in behind the barriers.