A former nurse at Forest Park Medical Center's hospital in Dallas has filed a lawsuit against the hospital seeking unpaid wages, according to a Dallas Business Journal report.
The hospital abruptly closed in late October. The morning the hospital closed, Todd Furniss, CEO of Dallas-based private equity firm glendonTodd Capital and chairman of The Management Company at Forest Park Medical Center, sent an email to employees informing them they would not be paid because of an "unexpected funding issue."
Laura Gurganus, a former nurse at the hospital, was one of about 150 employees affected by the closure. In her recently filed lawsuit, Ms. Gurganus claims people with ownership interests and operational responsibilities in the hospital told employees to continue working even though funds were not available to pay wages, according to the report.
In her lawsuit, filed Dec. 14, Ms. Gurganus further claims the owners and operators of the hospital hid financial information from employees and deprived them of the chance to find another job before they were laid off.
Mr. Furniss, glendonTodd and The Management Company at Forest Park Medical Center are among the defendants named in the lawsuit.
Mr. Furniss told the Dallas Business Journal there were no plans to close the hospital when employees were told to keep working.
"It's unfortunate that financing and funding wasn't there and that caused payroll to not be funded," said Mr. Furniss. "I do expect all employees to be paid over time."
Forest Park's hospital in Dallas isn't the only one of the system's facilities that hit financial troubles this year. The system's hospitals in Fort Worth, Texas, and Frisco, Texas, also filed for bankruptcy this year.
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