EMPLOYEES SUE MARIJUANA BUSINESS OVER APPLICATIONS

HELENA - Three former employees of a Missoula medical marijuana
business that has helped thousands of patients get their state
marijuana card sued its owner Thursday, alleging that he ordered
hundreds of card applications to be falsified.

The wrongful-discharge lawsuit filed in Missoula district court also
accused Jason Christ of the Montana Caregivers Network of verbally
abusing its employees, using company money for personal expenses,
driving a company van while smoking marijuana and creating a "hostile
work environment" that essentially forced the three workers to quit
June 18.

"(The employees) were exposed to unbearable working conditions, they
were directed to participate in actions that were unlawful and they
were directed to engage in unethical business practices directed
against physicians and others," the suit said.

Christ, on Friday, had this response: "This lawsuit is completely
frivolous, and I'm looking forward to defending myself in court."

Christ and his Montana Caregivers Network have been two of the most
visible figures in the explosion of medical marijuana use and
businesses in Montana within the past year.

The network has held traveling "medical screening clinics" across the
state where prospective patients line up to see physicians who can
consult with them and approve them for a medical marijuana card.

The network also has arranged video conferencing between physicians
and patients.

Christ is a medical marijuana patient himself, often seen in public
smoking the drug in a long pipe - most notably outside the state
Capitol, after testifying at recent legislative hearings on proposals
to tighten regulation of the state's medical marijuana program.

The lawsuit, filed by Tiffany Klang, John Phillips and Nicole
Harrington of Missoula, seeks back wages and punitive damages from
Christ for his "malicious conduct."

Chris Lindsey, a Helena attorney representing the three employees,
said they joined the business because they cared about helping medical
marijuana patients, but when Christ began going against his own
physicians' recommendations, "it was really too much for them," and
they quit.

Lindsey is a partner in Montana Cannabis, a medical marijuana
caregiver business in Helena that indirectly competes with Christ.
However, Lindsey said he's ending that partnership because he's
spending more time doing legal work for medical marijuana caregivers,
patients and physicians from all over the state.

The suit said that in January, Christ developed a new procedure that
required physicians working with the Caregivers Network to submit
thousands of signed certifications for marijuana cards that were blank.

A doctor outside the state would meet with a patient by video
conference and make an assessment. If the patient had a debilitating
disease that qualified for marijuana, the physician made a note in the
company database and another employee would fill out the certification
and submit it to the state with the patient's application, the suit
said.

Yet in March, Christ ordered employees to take all pending and denied
patient applications and submit them to the state, along with the
signed, blank certificates - whether the patients qualified or not, or
had even seen a physician, the lawsuit alleged.

The suit said Christ ordered employees to fill in the certificates and
say all of these patients

suffered from "chronic pain," which is one of the conditions that can
qualify a patient for medical marijuana. Nearly 70 percent of the
almost 23,000 Montanans with a marijuana card have "chronic pain" as a
diagnosis.

Christ falsely told staffers that his actions were the result of
negotiations with state health officials, the suit said.

The day before they quit in June, the three employees said they ran a
report showing that 84 patients had been rejected for a card after
seeing physicians at Caregiver Network events in Kalispell, Helena and
Missoula.

Christ ordered them to fill out the blank, pre-approved

certifications as approved, using the signatures of the very doctors
who had rejected the patients as unqualified, the lawsuit said.

Lindsey said the three employees gave their information to law
enforcement officials soon after they quit.

Harrington was an executive assistant to Christ; Phillips was a call
center manager; and Klang worked as office manager. They each had been
working at the Caregivers Network for several months before quitting.