Our View

Our View

CRH settlement

o_ers little closure to former employees

A perfect example of why there is such cynicism with our legal system, our disdain with exorbitant legal fees and money hungry lawyers and their class-action schemes, just take note to what is going on right here in Crittenden County regarding a class action lawsuit against the directors of the former Crittenden Regional Hospital.

Inept management which led to this county hospital’s demise left residents without local primary and emergency care, over 300 employees without a job, and over $5 million in unpaid medical bills.

And, if all that wasn’t bad enough we now hear these money-hungry Memphis lawyers are in a feeding frenzy over a $1.15 million settlement from Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company.

Under the supposed terms of this deal, the plaintiffs in this case would receive $400,000 from the settlement with $600,000 going toward the legal fees.

Local attorney Denny Sumpter originally filed the Class Action and is now saying attorneys fees should be capped at one-third of the settlement or about $380,000.

So seems these greedy lawyers, Ballin, Ballin & Fishman, and Burns Watson of Memphis, feel they deserve a whopping $865,000 of the settlement because they claim they did the majority of work.

Once again, it appears the plaintiffs are again getting the short end of the deal here.

Please explain to these victims and the citizens of Crittenden County how these lawyers earned or deserve $865,000, and why more of this settlement shouldn’t go to the victims of this deplorable injustice.

Sumpter hit the nail on the head when he said these greedy lawyers seem to only be focused on how much they are going to get paid with little or no regard for the concerns or welfare of the people they represent.

This all came about when Yolanda Goodman, who represents a class of litigants who sued the hospital over unpaid medical bills incurred after the hospital stopped paying employee health care premiums.

Goodman, who had $9,500 in unpaid medical bills, brought the suit in 2014 against CRH on behalf of 500 potential employees and family members who were part of the hospital’s health care plan.

At that time CRH was deducting about $100,000 a month from employees and collected over $4 million in premiums from 2011 until it closed.

The suit alleged hospital officials decided they could save money by not making the necessary payments to the plan and diverted the money in order to prop up the hospital’s deteriorating finances.

The thing that is so disgusting is that at the same time all this was going on, the hospital board renewed an insurance policy to protect them personally from any future liability just days before the they shut the hospital down and told the nurses, staff and employees they lost their jobs.

Now it appears there are a bunch of greedy lawyers trying to take advantage of the situation.

It is no wonder people have lost faith in the system.