News - 2015

David H. Rich was quoted in a Metrowest Daily News article on the $6.05 million judgment he obtained on behalf of a neurosurgeon and her related corporate entities based on their contractual dispute with a hospital and its corporate parent.

The case concerned the failure by a hospital, MetroWest Medical Center, and its corporate parent, Vanguard Health System, to follow through on their contractual obligations to develop a world class center for advanced brain and spine surgery at Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, Mass.

At their core, the agreements contemplated that MetroWest would supply the space, personnel and equipment sufficient for the plaintiffs to develop and operate a groundbreaking brain and spine institute in the suburbs of Boston.

“The real tragedy here, from [my client's] perspective, is this ground-breaking medical facility that would have been built in the suburbs of Boston and provided a tremendous service to the public will never be built,” Mr. Rich told the publication. “Her hope and expectation at the time was the model she started at MetroWest would have been carried forward nationally and internationally with Vanguard.”

MetroWest and Vanguard prematurely cancelled the parties' agreement after failing to live up to their contractual commitments by, among other things, failing to purchase the required equipment, failing to train the nursing staff, failing to procure an academic affiliation, and failing to make available an MRI machine on a 24/7 basis,. A lawsuit followed.

Following a three-week bench trial, Justice Christine Roach of the Massachusetts Superior Court's Business Litigation session issued a 78-page decision in favor of Attorney Rich's clients, and awarded Mr. Rich's clients $3 million in lost profit damages and $652,000 in unpaid management fee damages, plus attorneys' fees, costs and prejudgment interest.