By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The schools involved in lawsuits over high school football classifications made their cases in written responses Monday to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Attorneys representing Wood and Mason counties filed responses with the court in two separate cases dealing with the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission. Justice William Wooten was replaced with Fayette County Circuit Judge Thomas Ewing after Wooten recused himself from hearing the cases last week.
Attorneys for the WVSSAC filed a writ of prohibition last Thursday with the Supreme Court as well as a motion for expedited relief which the court granted, setting deadlines for noon Monday for attorneys for the school systems in Wood and Mason counties to respond.
Attorneys for Cabell County Schools and attorneys representing a student at Lincoln High School in Harrison County also filed friend-of-the-court briefs for and against the writ motion, respectively
Attorneys for the Wood County Board of Education were granted a motion for an injunction granted on Nov. 9 by Wood County Circuit Judge J.D. Beane that threw out a reclassification system for high school football put in place at the beginning of the school year by the WVSSAC, reinstating the previous classification system.
