So Garth Brooks has sued Integris Canadian Valley Hospital located in Yukon, Oklahoma, Garth’s hometown. Garth’s allegation is that he made a $500,000 donation to the hospital with the understanding that part of the hospital would be named after his late mother, Colleen, and the hospital is now refusing to do what they promised. Evidently, settlement negotiations pre-lawsuit fell through and hence, the lawsuit.

What is interesting to me is the reaction of at least one of the Yukon City Council members, John Tipps. He told FOX 25 (paraphrased) that Yukon has done a lot to promote Garth Brooks and perhaps the City should take Garth’s name off of the water tower and take his name off of the street currently named after him.

My reaction to Mr. Tipps comment is, “Are you kidding me? Hasn’t Garth done more to promote Yukon by just being from there than anything Yukon has done for Garth?” Now, I don’t pretend to know all of the history of promotion between Garth and Yukon, but the suggestion to remove Garth’s name from the water tower and the street is preposterous. What Yukon should be MORE worried about is Garth telling YUKON to remove his name from the water tower and street.

The question begs, “Why the drastic reaction?” Is it because Garth filed a lawsuit against a hospital located in Yukon (that is neither owned or operated by the City of Yukon, by the way)?

See, when people hear about a lawsuit being filed they instantly think of the Plaintiff, (Garth in this instance) calling the Defendant (the hospital) out for a fight and that the Plaintiff has done something wrong by addressing his or her grievance in court. The indication is that the parties were unable to resolve the dispute themselves, so it IS the courthouse that is the best place to resolve disagreements, not the parking lot.

I don’t know what the evidence will show, but what I do know is this lawsuit will either be settled, decided by the judge by pretrial motions, or tried (likely to a jury). It will be resolved by the best (not perfect) method the world knows to resolve disputes. The checks and balances system of judge, jury and appeals courts works and it will work in this case. Oh, and if anyone is thinking, “Yeah, well it’s not fair that just because Garth has a problem he can make the Defendant pay a bunch of money to lawyers to defend Garth’s bogus claim.” In contract cases, the winner can collect attorney fees from the loser. Again, the system works.

If you’d like to follow the Garth v. Integris case, you can do so here

Please let me know if you have any questions/comments. Would love to hear your feedback.