There are a lot of reasons for businesses to have to take other businesses to court.
Non-payment of bills is chief amongst those reasons.
However, it’s not often that they end up in federal court. The usual thing you find in a federal court venue ends up being transfer of foreign court judgment (a judgment in another state, in the federal realm), and most often involves anti-trust issues (as an example, price-fixing, the thing that hemmed up Champion Labs several years back, wherein it was alleged that they conspired to keep their filter prices at a certain high rate so that others in the field wouldn’t be able to compete.)
But that’s not what’s impacting a Carmi nursing home right now. This one is just plain older inter-state business, and back to the “non-payment of bills” as mentioned above. It ended up being in federal court primarily because the creditor was in Kentucky, whereas Phoenix, the nursing home in question, is here in Illinois.
So here now is your noontime Read the Lead, Phoenix under fire, a page 1 article in the current issue on stands right now.
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WHITE CO.—A federal judgment against a nursing home in Carmi has been entered into the record in White County Circuit Court.
The federal judgment, in the amount of $305,944.49, was obtained by default on January 17 of this year, in favor of Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC.
Badger is a supplier of hospitals, nursing home and home health care supplies in Henderson, Kentucky.
Badger provided goods and services, to Phoenix including pharmaceutical and over-the-counter drugs, pharmacy consulting services, and IV therapy needed by residents of the facility, commencing January 2, 2008 and by agreement was to continue to January 31 of this year.
However, court documents on file in Benton at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois show that prior to December 31, 2012, Phoenix fell behind in invoice payments for the goods provided by Badger.
A settlement agreement was made wherein Phoenix agreed to pay Badger $245,780.71 to fulfill the unpaid debt for services prior to the above-mentioned date, and Phoenix executed a promissory note to Badger on March 3, 2013, with an interest rate of 5.5 percent annually; payments were to be made in monthly installments.
If Phoenix missed a payment, the agreement stated, the interest rate would bump up to 9 percent. And court documents show that, as it happened, Phoenix missed payments for the months of April and May, 2013. At that time, Badger noticed them up to make payment in full, still attempting to work out arrangements to continue to provide drugs and services to Phoenix, about which they stated “none worked.”
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To continue reading the article, click on the headline link above the excerpt if you have an online membership to the e-Edition; if you don’t have one, click this link here to get started! Or, if you prefer to read your paper in the print version, visit one of our many vendors; in White County you can pick one up at Rock Bottom Liquors, East Side Package and Pundrake BP in Carmi; Mimmo’s Pizza in Norris City; One-Stop in Enfield; and Grayville Shell Mart and Liquor Barn in Grayville. Hurry…two weeks from today, this issue will be off the stands!