Hospital sues Beaufort Co. for trying to reinstate trustee who defied mask rules
The largest medical facility in Beaufort County is accusing the county’s elected council of unlawfully trying to reinstate a hospital board member who was asked to resign after she urged the council not to pass a mandatory face mask ordinance, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The suit, brought by Beaufort Memorial Hospital, says Beaufort County Council is usurping its authority and breaking S.C. law by unilaterally attempting to reinstate Kathleen Cooper to the hospital’s board of trustees despite the hospital’s assertion that she resigned and was not nominated to return.
Cooper served on the board from 2013 until July 1, 2020.
The lawsuit, which names Beaufort County as a defendant and accuses the council of overstepping its legislative authority, adds to a growing list of legal battles the county’s governing body has faced over the past year. It also sheds some light on why some council members have voted against mandatory mask rules throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Heated debates among elected officials and a voting error almost caused the rules to expire in October.
Illustrated in the lawsuit is a back-and-forth power struggle between the county government and the area’s publicly owned nonprofit hospital. Cooper’s name is on the county’s list of trustee members, but not on the hospital’s list.
Courtney McDermott, spokesperson for Beaufort Memorial Hospital, declined to comment Friday.
Council Vice Chair Paul Sommerville, who said he was served the lawsuit on Friday, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
The nine-member hospital board is nominated by Beaufort Memorial Hospital and then approved by County Council to maintain the hospital’s operations and oversee the healthcare needs of the county.
Hospital board members must have knowledge about healthcare issues and typically spend at least 20 hours a month serving the county area, according to the county’s website.
Since the start of the pandemic that has since killed over 7,000 people across the state, Beaufort Memorial Hospital officials have been consistent in their public messaging: Social distancing and mask-wearing help stem the rise of coronavirus cases. They worried if the virus continued to spread, it would overload local hospitals.
But, in June of last year, a day before Beaufort County Council was set to vote on an emergency ordinance that required people to wear face masks due to the rapidly growing rate of COVID-19 cases throughout the county, Cooper, according to the suit, emailed elected officials, asking them not to pass the rules.
Cooper did not return a call for comment Friday.
In her June 30, 2020, email titled “The Benefit of Wearing Masks is Inconclusive,” Cooper, according to the suit, told the elected officials that mask-wearing was “ineffective” at stopping the coronavirus based on “personal research.”
She did not identify herself as a hospital board member in the email, the lawsuit says.
After learning of Cooper’s email, the hospital, according to the suit, found that she did not adhere to the consistent messaging of the hospital and violated her duty to protect the safety of health care workers, patients and visitors.
On July 1, 2020, the day the ordinance passed, hospital board chair David House asked Cooper to resign. She resigned in writing “effective immediately,” according to the lawsuit.
However, the lawsuit says, vice chair Sommerville told House shortly after that the council refused to accept Cooper’s resignation because it had not “approved” it.
On July 10, the hospital’s attorney gave County Council members a copy of Cooper’s resignation letter and explained that the board’s bylaws and county ordinances don’t require that resignations be approved by council, according to the suit.
Six months later, on Jan. 4, House sent County Council members a letter detailing a list of people the hospital wanted appointed to the board. Cooper was not on the list, according to the suit.
Earlier this month, the suit says, House and Hospital CEO Russell Baxley learned that despite their nominations, the county’s executive committee planned to “reinstate” Cooper to the board for her third term.
In a Feb. 8 phone conversation detailed in the lawsuit, the hospital board’s attorney told the county’s attorney that the council could not unilaterally reinstate a board member after she resigned seven months prior.
The county’s attorney, according to the suit, argued that Cooper had been forced to resign unlawfully and had rescinded her July resignation.
Twenty minutes after the phone call, Cooper emailed House and Sommerville a letter, which was dated the day before, stating that she was withdrawing her resignation because it was “improper,” according to the suit. She asked Sommerville to reinstate her to the board.
Hours later, on Feb. 8, the county’s executive committee, led by Sommerville, voted to move Cooper’s reinstatement to the full County Council for final approval. The final vote, which has yet to happen, will require 10 of the 11 members’ approval.
Beaufort Memorial’s lawsuit against the county says the council does not have the legal authority to reinstate any member to the hospital board and that she also cannot be re-appointed to the board for a third term because she was not nominated by the hospital.
“Beaufort County has, through the actions of County Council, sought to usurp the nomination powers of the Board that are set forth in the County Ordinances and to control and manage the Board, in violation of state law,” the suit says.
The hospital claims that the county acted unlawfully and beyond its authority as a public body.
Beaufort Memorial is asking the court to prohibit the county from attempting to reinstate hospital board members who resign or whose terms have expired and to prohibit the county from trying to appoint a board member without a formal nomination from the hospital.
It asks that Beaufort County be required to pay the hospital’s legal fees and “all other appropriate relief.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 5:44 PM.
