WV Supreme Court upholds Charleston's demolition of Chinese restaurant

Charleston’s Demonation of Chinese Restaurant Upheld, $58K Judgment Stands

Charleston can keep the money. The West Virginia Supreme Court has upheld the city’s right to demolish a building housing the New China Restaurant and a nearly $59,000 bill for the work, ending a years-long legal fight with the property owners. According to the West Virginia Record, the justices unanimously affirmed a lower court’s ruling, leaving intact a $58,539.54 judgment against Philip Dy Chin for the demolition costs, plus fees and interest.

The case, which has dragged on since 2021, centers on a dramatic February 2020 incident when several hundred bricks fell from the two-story building on Charleston’s east side. The city’s inspectors, along with an engineer hired by the owners, agreed on one crucial point: the structure was unsafe and posed an immediate public threat. The engineer’s report was blunt, finding that immediate, extensive repairs were necessary to prevent a further collapse and that those repairs would cost more than the building itself was worth.

This is where the timeline gets tight. On February 21, 2020, the city gave Chin just three days—until February 24—to complete the corrective work. The notice was a clear warning: if the public danger remained, “the city will be forced to demolish the building at your ultimate expense.” Chin hired a mason to remove the fallen and loose bricks, but that was it. No further action was taken by the deadline.

The city moved quickly. The next day, February 25, the owners went to court seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the demolition. A Kanawha County circuit judge denied the request, citing the very safety reports that had prompted the city’s action. The owners didn’t appeal that ruling, and the city demolished the building shortly after, placing a lien on the property to ensure it got paid.

The financial hit to the owners was significant. They sued the city in February 2021, seeking damages. The city fired back, counterclaiming to recover the unpaid demolition charges. In March 2023, the circuit court granted summary judgment to the city on both fronts, finding Charleston had followed all the rules. The owners appealed, arguing a dispute of fact should have forced a trial.

They claimed a city official had told their lawyer on the morning of February 24 that removing the bricks was enough to temporarily stop demolition. But the city reversed course that evening, they said, announcing demolition would begin the next day. The Supreme Court wasn’t buying it. In a newly released opinion, the justices agreed with the Intermediate Court of Appeals, saying the owners’ argument was too vague to create a genuine legal dispute.

“Petitioners’ skeletal argument failed to address how the foregoing created an issue of material fact that could potentially entitle petitioners to relief on a specific cause of action,” the court wrote.

The court also dismissed the owners’ second argument, that the earlier denial of their restraining order had improperly barred their later claims. The justices found no evidence in the record that the circuit court had made that mistake. With both of their challenges rejected, the path was clear to uphold the $58,539.54 judgment.

The case, West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals case number 24-403, sets a precedent for how municipalities can act when faced with an imminent structural collapse.

The full Supreme Court opinion can be accessed through the official case file, 24-403, on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals website. For more details on the initial incident and lower court rulings, records from the Kanawha County Circuit Court are part of the public record.

Keep reading