Aurora ponders damages in lawsuit against Oconomowoc

Multimillion-dollar request likely

Waukesha Freeman, Feb. 18, 2006

By Erik Brooks
Freeman Staff

OCONOMOWOC Aurora Health Care will seek damages that reflect years of lost business in a lawsuit brought against the city five years ago over failed plans to build a hospital at Pabst Farms, an Aurora official said.

The figure is expected to be in the tens of millions of dollars.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge James Kieffer has given Aurora until March 31 to arrive at an amount the system will ask for as the newly revived case proceeds.

Spokesman Jeff Squire declined to estimate how much in damages Aurora would seek.

But it will be a figure that reflects years of lost business, he said. The simple fact is that had that property not been rezoned in 2001, there would be a hospital operating on that site now.

Aurora first filed the lawsuit against Oconomowoc and city officials in 2001, claiming that the city council acted illegally in using the zoning process to block construction of a hospital on an 88-acre parcel at Highway 67 and Interstate 94.

Squire said on Friday that the chief interest of the hospital system remains to build a hospital in western Waukesha County.

But besides seeking to have the zoning change declared void and illegal, the lawsuit also seeks damages, costs and attorneys fees, including punitive damages.

Until now, the size of those damages has not been seriously discussed internally.

Kieffers deadline, however, has forced the hospital system to take a closer look at the issue, and Aurora has hired an outside expert to begin calculations, Squire said.

The damage figure will easily reach the millions of dollars, especially given the amount of revenue hospitals take in each year, said Andy Serio, president of Health Care System Consultants Inc., a Wauwatosa consulting firm.

For instance, Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital reported $83.8 million in operating revenues in 2004, while Waukesha Memorial Hospital reported revenues of $315.8 million, according to figures from the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

Elmbrook Memorial Hospital in Brook field reported revenues of $118.9 million in 2004.

Still, Serio said the damage request will likely mean little even with a verdict in Auroras favor. Appeals will likely knock any damage figure down, he said.

Also, the damages sought will have little to do with whether Aurora will ultimately open a new hospital in western Waukesha County, Serio said.

Aurora will build a hospital, he said. There isnt an issue of Gosh, are they going to build a hospital in Waukesha County? Its just a matter of when.

Oconomowoc Mayor Maury Sullivan, who was not mayor at the time the lawsuit was filed, said the citys comment on the damages will first be made in court.

Well both be interested in seeing that, he said of the damage request. I am not dwelling on it. We have got a good group of attorneys. Whatever they have alleged, they have alleged, and their burden is (to) prove it. The city continues to function. There is no paralysis here because somebody makes some allegations.

District 2 Alderwoman Lora Mae Cochrane, District 1 Alderman James Larsen and District 4 Alderman John Gross, all named in the lawsuit, declined comment on the potential damages.

Gross cited an agreement he and others have with Aurora to not interfere with the hospitals plans to build a new hospital across from the proposed Oconomowoc site in the town of Summit, an effort that is also tied up in a lawsuit after the Waukesha County Board voted down the plans last spring.

Well wait until everything comes out in court, Gross said. Thats all we can do.