HealthSouth Announces Favorable Ruling in 'Digital Hospital' Lawsuit

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - HealthSouth Corporation today announced that the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama had ruled against Brookwood Health Services, Inc. and Baptist Health System, Inc. in a case challenging the construction of the HealthSouth Medical Center digital hospital in Birmingham. Brookwood and Baptist had asked the court to declare unconstitutional a statute that provided an expedited review from the certificate of need review process to replace an existing acute care hospital and construct and operate the first digital hospital in the State. The plaintiffs also asked the Court to permanently prohibit HealthSouth from continuing to proceed with the project.

Ruling in HealthSouth's favor, the court found that Brookwood and Baptist had delayed too long in filing suit to challenge the Act, waiting until HealthSouth had already incurred substantial expense and begun development of the project site before filing the lawsuit. The court found that the plaintiffs had offered "no legitimate reason for their delay" in filing suit, and that their claims were barred by this delay.

"We are very pleased with Judge Shashy's ruling in this case," said Richard M. Scrushy, Chairman of the Board and CEO of HealthSouth. "We have made extraordinary progress in the construction of the digital hospital, and we hope that the plaintiffs will not pursue further efforts to prevent the people of Alabama from benefiting from the new technologies and safety innovations that we are trying to make available here in Birmingham."

HealthSouth is the nation's largest provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitative healthcare services, with approximately 1,800 locations in all 50 states, the United Kingdom, Australia, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

Source: HealthSouth