Business Law 16th Edition by Jane Mallor,James Barnes ,Arlen Langvardt,Jamie Darin Prenkert,Martin McCrory

تمرين 9

Mary Beth Calor, an anesthesiologist, entered into a physician services agreement with a medical staffing agency, Staff Care, Inc. Under a contract between Staff Care and King's Daughters Medical Center (KDMC), a Kentucky hospital owned by Ashland Hospital Corp., Staff Care supplied KDMC with anesthesiologists who would work temporarily at the hospital. Calor was among the anesthesiologists supplied to KDMC by Staff Care. During the October 2001 to June 2002 period when Calor worked at KDMC pursuant to the contract between KDMC and Staff Care, Calor claimed an unusually large number of hours worked. She recorded her hours on forms that had to be signed off on by the chair or vice-chair of KDMC's anesthesiology department. This was required by Staff Care, to ensure that it billed KDMC appropriately and that it suitably paid the individual physicians who worked under the contract arrangement. Staff Care's scheduling coordinator noticed the extremely large number of hours Calor billed. She therefore called KDMC's physician recruiter to discuss her concerns, which arose in large part because Staff Care paid the malpractice insurance premiums for its contract physicians and the premium was directly related to the number of hours worked by the physicians.
KDMC realized that costs for the physicians supplied by Staff Care had significantly exceeded the amount budgeted by KDMC for those services. KDMC's chief financial officer, Paul McDowell, examined some of Calor's billings and questioned their reasonableness. A month later, KDMC decided to withhold payments to Staff Care for Calor's services, but did not so inform Staff Care and Calor at that time. By May, Staff Care had provided invoices for over $200,000 in billings that were past due because KDMC was withholding payment not only for Calor's billings but also for those of other physicians provided by Staff Care. When Staff Care inquired about this, KDMC offered excuses and made untrue statements about planning to pay. KDMC did not tell Staff Care and Calor that KDMC was investigating Calor's billings. Later, however, McDowell called a supervisor at Staff Care, who wrote the following in her daily work notes: "He explained they are releasing Dr. Mary Beth Calor as of today due to her falsifying timesheet in hours worked and overtime." That same day, McDowell spoke with a second supervisor at Staff Care and said he had information that showed Calor had falsified her billings. Over the following weeks, McDowell and the second supervisor spoke often, and McDowell informed the supervisor of a dollar amount that he (McDowell) claimed Calor had overbilled.
KDMC did not pay Staff Care, which sued to recover on its contract but settled prior to trial. In turn, Staff Care did not pay Calor. Calor later filed a defamation lawsuit against McDowell and Ashland Hospital Corp. (KDMC's owner) in a Kentucky court. If the evidence reveals that Calor did not in fact engage in overbilling, what argument are the defendants likely to make in an effort to avoid being held liable for defamation? Why that argument?