Jefferson County jury awards doctor $10 million

Jefferson County jury awards doctor $10 million

Friday, October 23, 2009
A-Section Page A9

By Ken Fountain
KFountain@BeaumontEnterprise.com (409) 880-0720
The Enterprise

A Jefferson County jury Wednesday awarded a Port Arthur emergency room doctor a $10 million verdict in a case in which he claimed The Medical Center of Southeast Texas conspired to lure away doctors who worked under him.

Dr. Kirk Williams, president of Apollo Physicians of Texas, contracted emergency room operations at the hospital and its predecessors, Mid-Jefferson Hospital and Park Place Medical Center, beginning in 1998.

In his lawsuit, Williams claimed that Iasis Healthcare Holdings, the corporate owners of Beaumont Hospital Holdings and the medical center, entered into secret negotiations with a Florida company, EDCare Management Inc., to take over the ER operations in December 2006.

Williams claimed Iasis negotiated a contract that he could not in good conscience sign, since it would require him to meet certain performance standards, or "benchmarks," that he had little or no control over and would harm patient care.

Williams also claimed the new company, EDCare, secretly negotiated with the contract physicians who worked under him to continue working at the hospital for EDCare. He said this amounted to "tortious interference," or interfering with his business relationships with other doctors.

Williams sued all of the entities, also alleging breach of contract and conspiracy among other things.

Wednesday, after several hours of deliberations, the jury found that Iasis, the hospital's parent company, interfered with Williams' prospective business relationships with the doctors who used to contract with him but now work under EDCare, according to the lead attorney for Iasis, Curry Cooksey.

The jury, voting 11-1, awarded Williams $4 million in past economic damages and $6 million in future damages, Cooksey said. But, the jury did not find that either the hospital or EDCare, or the other doctors, did anything wrong in entering into their own contracts.

Clay Dugas, Williams'lead attorney, said the evidence presented showed that the hospital entered into secret negotiations with EDCare and asked Williams to sign a contract that none of the ER contract companies at its other hospitals around the country were asked to sign.

Dugas said at other hospitals, none of the ER contract companies were told that not meeting the "benchmarks" would be grounds for terminating a contract.

"It's a completely justified verdict," Dugas said.

Williams, reached by phone Thursday, said he felt "vindicated" by the verdict.

Cooksey, Iasis' attorney, said the verdict was "problematic," since it awarded Williams damages for future prospective business relationships with the doctors now working under EDCare.

He said the company would wait for post-judgment rulings before deciding whether to appeal the verdict.