If Judge Patrick Stanton’s words and demeanor were any indication Tuesday morning, there will finally be a settlement in the drawn out dueling lawsuits between West Suburban Medical Center landlord Rathnaker Patlola and owner and CEO Manoj Prasad.
Maybe.
Stanton, a Cook County judge, scheduled yet another court date for Friday, July 17 at 11:30 a.m. after an at times heated discussion between the judge and a total of four attorneys.
Stanton also noted and continued a motion hearing on a filing by Patlola’s attorney Scott Kaplan to enforce a settlement he said was agreed to “in principle” on May 29 or, in the alternative, to appoint a receiver to take over the West Suburban property.
“Let’s see if the parties here can come to an agreement,” Stanton said hopefully. “I need everybody to put this at the top of their list.”
But after several settlement conferences and court hearings, it was apparent that not only was everybody not on the same page, but that not everybody had even seen all the pages needing to be read.
That elicited some frustrated exchanges between Stanton and Howard Brookins, Prasad’s recently hired attorney.
“What is the status of the settlement,” Stanton queried Brookins.
When Brookins informed the judge he was still waiting to read the purportedly agreed upon settlement, things got a bit tense with the judge in a quick back and forth.
“You’re frustrated with me, I’m frustrated with my predecessor (attorney),” Brookins told the judge. He said he’d asked Martin Tasch, who withdrew last week, for a copy of the settlement.
“We’ve had two (settlement) sessions,” Stanton told Brookins and the others. “The question is, are we going forward. I have no idea. A week and a half we’re waiting for this.”
Brookins problem was resolved when attorney David Rosenthal, who said he is representing S&P Consulting, a company looking to intervene in the lawsuit, offered to forward him a copy of the settlement in his possession.
However, the judge took issue with Brookins refuting Kaplan’s claim that the settlement is legally enforceable.
“Maybe you better read it,” Stanton said of the settlement agreement to Brookins. “You’re telling me it’s not enforceable and you haven’t read it.”
“You stepped onto a moving train,” Stanton noted of Brookins’ replacing Tasch. “To get up to speed, that should have happened by now,” Stanton said.
Kaplan said the primary reason for the delay was that Prasad is dragging his feet on one issue presumed to have been resolved.
“There’s major terms they’re trying to walk back,” he said, specifically item # 3 in a list of terms in the settlement.
Prasad’s personal attorney, Jacob Radecki, appeared via Zoom and told Stanton that the “only daylight” between Prasad and Patlola/Ramco, in his opinion, was another lawsuit filed against Patlola and several of his companies by a lender who has a claim on West Sub’s River Forest medical campus property. He said Prasad had been made aware of it recently.
“In sum and subtance,” Radecki said, without elaborating, any differences came down to “management issues and the timing issue.”
“It’s not as if we’re saying, hey, this can’t go forward,” Radecki said. “That’s not my client’s intent.”
“I’m hearing from counsel for Dr. Prasad there are no issues,” Stanton said. “Can we convene Friday in the afternoon?”
As the hearing concluded, Stanton asked if there were any other concerns to be addressed. Kaplan noted that the looming electrical service shut off by Commonwealth Edison remained a key concern. The extended and final deadline for the payment of overdue bills is Wednesday, July 15.
Stanton leaned back, threw up his hands. “It would behoove everyone to deal with that,” he said. “That is the urgency we have here.”