World Health Securities Litigation Settles

An article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicates that a settlement has been reached in the securities litigation pending against certain former officers of World Health Alternatives, Inc. and the company's former auditor, Daszkal Bolton LLP.

The settlement is valued at approximately $2.7 million, and would be funded by the company's D&O insurance and its former auditors. In addition, the company's former president, Richard E. McDonald, would have to surrender 435,000 shares of stock in three unnamed companies. The article notes that the settlement agreement recognizes that those securities may be unmarketable.

World Health was a Pittsburgh based provider of temporary medical staffing personnel that imploded following the August 15, 2005 resignation of McDonald after questions surfaced regarding his educational background. Just six months later the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and in April 2006 the company's assets were acquired by Jackson Healthcare Solutions, a former rival based in Atlanta.

Columbus Capital Partners, L.P. and Columbus Offshore, Ltd., a pair of San Francisco based hedge-funds, are lead plaintiffs and Berger & Montague, P.C. and Caroselli Beachler McTiernan & Conboy LLC are lead and liaison counsel, respectively.

A Pittsburgh Tribune Review article details the allegations contained in the consolidated complaint filed in April 2006.

Daily Trivia: One of Jackson Healthcare's divisions is LocumTenens.com "the only free physician job board and full-service recruiting agency on the Web." The company's name means "one filling an office for a time or temporarily taking the place of another -- used especially of a doctor or clergyman."

Therus Kolff, a physician and currently the chairman of VISTA Staffing Solutions in Salt Lake City, is credited with establishing CompHealth, the first locum tenens company in the nation, in 1979.