{"id":7702,"date":"2011-05-11T04:53:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T09:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=7702"},"modified":"2011-05-11T05:50:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T10:50:09","slug":"lawsuit-against-hospital-association-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/05\/11\/lawsuit-against-hospital-association-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit against hospital appears over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Van Wert independent<\/strong><\/p>\n

First there were two plaintiffs, only one didn\u2019t know it was one. Then there was one, as the one that didn\u2019t know it was one was dismissed. Now there are no plaintiffs and no lawsuit either. Clear?<\/p>\n

Confusing as it is, that was the gist of action taken on Tuesday as Lima attorney William Balyeat filed notice to dismiss the suit against the Van Wert County Hospital Association filed in April, according to court officials.<\/p>\n

\"\"The lawsuit, ostensibly filed on behalf of the Van Wert County Hospital Commission and Hospital Commission member Farrel Krall against the Hospital Association, claimed the association failed to honor some of the terms of its hospital lease, including providing audited financial statements and an appraisal of the hospital property, required as part of the lease agreement. The legal action sought to compel the Hospital Association to provide those documents to the plaintiffs and sought to have the lease with the county broken if it did not.<\/p>\n

The first problem for Balyeat, who was appointed by Van Wert County Common Pleas Judge Charles D. Steele on March 14 to represent the Hospital Commission, came the same day hospital officials were served with the legal action. Soon after that action, officers of the Hospital Commission were contacted and said they knew nothing about the lawsuit, although the Commission was named as a plaintiff. That called into question the legitimacy of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The second problem came when Judge Steele emailed County Prosecutor Charles F. Kennedy III, who had requested Balyeat’s appointment in the first place, telling the prosecutor to inform Balyeat there was no proof the Hospital Commission authorized the lawsuit and also noting that Balyeat\u2019s $170-an-hour legal fee was too high.<\/p>\n

Soon after Judge Steele’s\u00a0email, Balyeat dismissed the Hospital Commission from the suit, leaving Krall as the only plaintiff in the case.<\/p>\n

The third problem for the lawsuit was that, despite Balyeat’s claims the Hospital Association had not delivered the documents sought, they were found by media representatives, including the Van Wert independent, to be readily available in the County Commissioners\u2019 office, which also serves as the legal address of the Hospital Commission.<\/p>\n

Hospital officials, including hospital President\/CEO Mark Minick, had also contended that the Hospital Commission\u2019s representative on the Hospital Association Board of Trustees, was also given the documents sought and should have provided them to the Hospital Commission.<\/p>\n

With the dismissal of Krall as the final plaintiff, thereby also dismissing the suit, it appears as if the legal battle over the transfer of the hospital property has ended — especially as the County Commissioners have also officially finalized the hospital transfer and have disbanded the Hospital Commission, which is no longer needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Van Wert independent First there were two plaintiffs, only one didn\u2019t know it was one. Then there was one, as the one that didn\u2019t know it was one was dismissed. Now there are no plaintiffs and no lawsuit either. Clear? Confusing as it is, that was the gist of action taken on Tuesday as Lima […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 20:24:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}