California Supreme Court Rejects Motion To Reduce Award to Former Tenet Executive
The California Supreme Court has rejected a petition by Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare to review an appellate court decision to award about $148 million to a former executive fired in 1993, Tenet officials said, Reuters/Los Angeles Times reports (Reuters/Los Angeles Times, 2/20). In the case, John Bedrosian, a co-founder of Tenet predecessor National Medical Enterprises, filed a lawsuit alleging that the company failed to provide him with stock benefits when he was terminated without cause in 1993. The 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles originally ruled that Tenet must pay Bedrosian $253 million but later reduced the judgment to $148 million after modifying the date from which prejudgement interest was calculated from April 1995 to Oct. 3, 2002. The original ruling calculated interest from the April date of the original trial court judgment, but the newer ruling assumed that Bedrosian would have sold the shares on Oct. 3 (California Healthline, 12/1/03). The California Supreme Court also rejected a petition by Bedrosian to reverse the appeals court decision to cut the original award and to reimburse his legal fees. According to the Santa Barbara News-Press, Tenet will pay the judgment to Bedrosian "within the next few weeks." The company already has set aside money for the ruling (Nelson, Santa Barbara News-Press, 2/20).
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