Lawyer for hospital group quits
Cites nonpayment
Staff writer
The latest casualty on the list of people and companies owed money by the owners of Hillsboro Community Hospital appears to be the lawyer hired to defend them in Marion County District Court.
Wichita lawyer Thomas Gilman filed motions Tuesday asking the court’s permission to withdraw from representing hospital owner CAH Acquisition Co. 5 and a related company, Health Acquisition Co., because they have not paid him as agreed.
In the case of HAC, for which Gilman last week filed a motion seeking to intervene in a Bank of Hays’ mortgage foreclosure lawsuit against CAH and 11 other defendants, his motion to withdraw states that not only has HAC not paid as agreed, they have failed to fill out and return an agreement for him to represent them.
His motions seeking to withdraw will be decided by a judge Tuesday, the same day as a hearing to decide whether hospital receiver Cohesive Healthcare Management and Consulting should be given control of CAH Acquisition Co. 5 as well.
The day before filing his motions to withdraw, Gilman filed a motion asking the court to delay depositions of CAH corporate officials by the bank’s lawyers.
According to that motion, the bank notified CAH on Feb. 15 that they wanted a company representative in their office 11 days later to testify on 36 separate topics. CAH wants to wait until a mutually agreed time and date instead of requiring company officials to travel from out-of-state on short notice.
“Requiring an out of state witness to drop everything and travel to a deposition to discuss 36 separate topics with less than two weeks’ notice is unduly burdensome and beyond reasonable, especially when CAH is willing to schedule a deposition of its corporate representative at a later mutually agreeable time,” the motion states.