This is the kind of Whisper designed mainly to make you feel better by comparison.
On Jan. 22, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Morgan E. “Chip” Welch will conduct a status hearing in a nursing home liability case that is seeking class-action status.
With class actions, you expect a lot of plaintiffs, but this one also has 64 defendants. Assuming we counted correctly.
Among the topics to discuss at the hearing: a pending motion for sanctions and a $40 million discovery compliance bond against the defendants, represented by R.T. “Rick” Beard III of Little Rock’s Mitchell Williams firm, for “disgraceful defiance” of court-ordered discovery.
“I lividly report that Defendants admit non-compliance via Notice of Partial Compliance filed on deadline day,” plaintiffs’ attorney Gene A. Ludwig of Little Rock told Welch in a letter dated Nov. 30.
Ludwig also accused the defense of “one of the oldest tricks in the book” — bringing in a new lawyer who promptly filed a motion for a stay in the case. That would be Clarke Tucker of Quattlebaum Grooms & Tull in Little Rock.
“… I write to say that Plaintiffs plan to file a response strongly opposing any opportunity to distance themselves from this Court’s grip of accountability,” Ludwig informed the judge.
It’s a case originally filed in September 2014 against publicly traded nursing home operator Adcare Health Systems Inc. of the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, Georgia, the nursing homes it owns in Arkansas and the dozens of entities and individuals affiliated with Adcare.
Whispers will generously leave it to Welch to determine whether the defense has misbehaved. In a letter to Welch in response to Ludwig’s lividity, Tucker said the defendants “have incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs” in attempting to comply with discovery orders.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta
Tucker also made another interesting point to explain his motion for a stay: One of the plaintiffs, a member of the Adcare board of directors, was sued by the Securities & Exchange Commission for allegedly misappropriating millions of dollars from investors in nursing homes that he owned separately from Adcare.
Christopher Brogdon of Atlanta resigned from the Adcare board on the day the SEC filed suit, Nov. 20. The federal regulators have asked the federal court in New Jersey for an anti-litigation injunction.
“The complications presented by those proceedings are likely unwelcome to all parties to this case,” Tucker said.
Eight of the nine Adcare facilities named in Ludwig’s lawsuit have been divested, which Tucker said made it harder for the defense to access records demanded by the plaintiffs.
Seven of the defendant facilities have been subleased to Aria Health Group LLC of Little Rock: Stone County Nursing & Rehabilitation Center at Mountain View, Heritage Park Nursing Center at Rogers, Homestead Manor Nursing Home at Stamps; Northridge Healthcare & Rehabilitation of North Little Rock and three facilities in Little Rock, Woodland Hills Healthcare & Rehabilitation, West Markham Sub Acute & Rehabilitation Center and Cumberland Health & Rehabilitation Center.
Most are now operating under the Highlands name.
Another facility named in the suit, Bentonville Manor Nursing Home, was sold to Bozeman Development LLC of San Antonio on July 1 for $3.4 million, Adcare reported.
The ninth is River Valley Health & Rehabilitation Center at Fort Smith.
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