Garth Brooks’ lawsuit over Oklahoma hospital naming rights goes to trial

Country superstar and Yukon, OK native Garth Brooks filed a lawsuit against his hometown’s Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital. Brooks claims that he donated $500,000 to the hospital in exchange for having the hospital re-named in honor of his late-mother, Colleen, but when the hospital decided not to years later, they did not return the donation. The lawsuit is moving to trial starting Tuesday.

According to The Associated Press, Brooks claims that the hospital had even showed him mock-ups with his mother’s name on a new building before he made the donation in December 2005. He claims they told him that his donation was specifically for that building.

When the hospital went to Brooks in 2008 to tell him that there was a change in plans, he asked for the donation back, but they declined. "I am stunned and hurt by the way this situation has been handled by the hospital,” Brooks’ spokeswoman told The Tulsa World.

Attorneys for Integris claim in a written response that the two sides signed an "anonymous and unconditional agreement” before Brooks told them that the building would need to be named for his mother, who passed away in 1999 from cancer.

In the lawsuit, though, Brooks claims that Integris had been courting him and his father for at least two years before he made the donation under the condition that the building be named after his mother.

The Tulsa World reports that Integris has since spent $27 million expanding, but never named a building for Colleen Brooks.

Brooks turns 50 next month and is still the best-selling solo artist in the US, having sold 128 million records, notes the Daily Mail.