Okla. hospital must pay $1M to singer Brooks

CLAREMORE, Okla. – An Oklahoma hospital that failed to build a women’s health center in honor of Garth Brooks’ late mother must pay the country singer $1 million, a jury has ruled.

Jurors on Tuesday evening ruled that the hospital must return Brooks’ $500,000 donation plus pay him $500,000 in punitive damages. The decision came in Brooks’ breach-of-contract lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon, Okla. Brooks said he thought he’d reached a deal in 2005 with the hospital’s president, James Moore, but sued after learning the hospital wanted to use the money for other construction projects.

The hospital argued that Brooks gave it unrestricted access to the $500,000 donation and only later asked that it build a women’s center and name it after his mother, Colleen Brooks, who died of cancer in 1999.

Brooks called the jurors “heroes” and said he felt vindicated by their verdict.

AP