Thomas Kane, Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, in the firm’s Princeton office, was quoted in Burlington County Times, in “Lourdes Agrees to Leave Deborah ER, but Legal Fight Continues,” by David Levinsky.
Following is an excerpt:
The legal battle between Deborah Heart and Lung Center and Lourdes Health will continue, even though Lourdes has agreed to vacate the satellite emergency department in Deborah’s hospital in Pemberton Township.
Attorneys from both health care providers revealed in Superior Court on Friday that Lourdes has agreed to leave the ER it has operated at Deborah’s Trenton Road specialty hospital since 2010 so that Deborah may partner with a new, still-unnamed health care provider to deliver emergency care there. ...
During Friday’s hearing, Deborah’s attorney, Tom Kane, argued that the 2009 partnering agreement was written expressly to prevent Lourdes from also partnering with another health care provider offering cardiology care in Burlington County and that Lourdes’ should not be allowed to break that covenant. He cited documents filed by Virtua and Lourdes with the Attorney General’s Office as showing Virtua was aware of the contract language and what it meant as early as 2012 when it began exploring a potential partnership with Lourdes.
“Since 2012 they knew it was out there and were looking for a way around it,” Kane said, adding that the hospital also knowingly violated its lease agreement, which expired on April 15.
