Jury Says Hospital Must Return Gift - and Pay Damages

Garth Brooks gave an Oklahoma hospital $500,000 several years ago, but then sued to get it back.  Brooks argued that the hospital had agreed to build a women's center and name it after his mother.  The hospital countered that Brooks had given it the money with no strings attached and that conversations may have been misremembered. Brooks brought a breach-of-contract lawsuit, and the jury awarded Brooks his $500,000 - and an extra $500,000 in punitive damages.  A juror said the decision to award punitive damages came because: "We wanted to show them not to do that anymore to anyone else."

Curiously, the AP story says that Brooks had admitted in a deposition that he could not remember what had been promised.  The story does not mention a written agreement.

Thanks to Fred Hopengarten who sent me this link to the story on boston.com.

sng