The headquarters of the Alabama Department of Corrections. The law firm representing the company in several lawsuits last week asked to be removed from the cases, saying it had not been paid since the beginning of the year. (Alabama Department of Corrections)
A Birmingham law firm representing a Tennessee-based healthcare company that recently lost a $1 billion contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections has requested to withdraw from two lawsuits involving the company.
Philip Paggott, a shareholder with Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A., wrote in a filing with the U.S. Middle District of Alabama that YesCare, doing business as Corizon Health Care (CHS) had not paid the firm since the beginning of the year.
“The below-signed counsel has been informed by the general counsel for CHS AL, LLC, Scott King, that CHS AL, LLC does not have the resources to pay any legal invoices currently owed nor does it have any financial resources at this juncture to pay any legal expenses going forward,” Paggott said in a filing with the court.
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A message was sent to Paggott on Friday seeking additional comment. Messages were also sent to YesCare and the ADOC seeking comment.
The notice came roughly one week after the ADOC told the Joint Prison Oversight Committee meeting on April 22 that it planned to terminate its $1 billion healthcare services contract with the company amid reports YesCare was struggling to meet payroll.
YesCare faces numerous lawsuits from people in ADOC custody and their families alleging it did not provide adequate care.
Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A. was representing YesCare in a lawsuit filed by Glendora Dvine, a former employee for the company, for discrimination in the workplace that was filed in July. The case is still ongoing.
In the lawsuit, filed last July after she was terminated in February 2025, Dvine alleged that she was forced to work in a hostile work environment perpetrated by her supervisor, who called her ‘“sweety,’ even though I am much older.”
Dvine said she told her supervisor multiple times to call her by her name, but the practice continued. She also alleged that her supervisor told her colleagues at work to file false complaints against her.
“Due to the false complaints, I was fired,” she said in the lawsuit. “I believe if not for my age and complaint of age discrimination, I would still be employed.”
In the other lawsuit, filed in January, inmate Martell Wilkerson alleged he was beaten by several corrections officers in Ventress Correctional Facility in 2024 as he was brushing his teeth.
Wilkerson alleged YesCare denied him adequate medical treatment “pursuant to the policy, practice, or custom of Defendant YesCare to deny comprehensive treatment to prisoners in order to save money. This policy, practice, or custom is based entirely on financial considerations; it is not based on medical judgment or an individualized determination of a prisoner’s medical needs.”
The case was referred to mediation and is closed pending that outcome.
From Alabama Reflector Post Url: Visit
Author: Ralph Chapoco