ST. CROIX — A Superior Court judge has ordered the Virgin Islands Government Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation to pay more than $12 million to a New York-based travel nursing company, bringing to a close a lawsuit that stretched over more than a decade and exposed years of unpaid bills at the Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center.
The final judgment, entered by Superior Court Judge Ernest Morris after an evidentiary hearing on March 30, awards Worldwide Travel Staffing Ltd. a total of $12,137,664.84 — a figure that includes $4.2 million in unpaid invoices, nearly $7.9 million in interest that accumulated over 12 years, and a reasonable amount in attorneys’ fees and court costs.
In 2005, Worldwide Travel Staffing reached an agreement with JFL to supply licensed nurses and other health care professionals to the St. Croix hospital. The contract was capped at $2 million and renewed automatically each year.
JFL, however, never made a single timely payment, according to court records. Despite that, Worldwide kept sending nurses because the hospital needed them. JFL and Worldwide kept negotiating new arrangements to manage the growing debt.
JFL owed Worldwide more than $2.1 million by early 2010. The hospital’s chief executive officer subsequently signed a $300,000 promissory note, acknowledging the debt and promising to pay it down. As part of the agreement, JFL gave up its right to later challenge the charges.
The hospital continued falling behind, leading the CEO to sign four more promissory notes over the next two years. By November 2011, the hospital owed nearly $3.75 million. At that point, the CEO signed another agreement, formally admitting the amount owed and promising to make 12 monthly payments of $50,000 while staying current on new invoices.
JFL made good-faith efforts to pay between late 2011 and May 2013, paying Worldwide a total of $13.4 million over the life of the contract. However, the hospital stopped paying entirely in May 2013.
Worldwide continued providing nurses for another six months before pulling out in November 2013. At that point, the unpaid balance grew to $4,220,704.35. Worldwide did not receive another payment after that.
Considering a 2018 Virgin Islands Supreme Court ruling established that the hospital has no independent legal identity and cannot be sued, the Virgin Islands Government Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation is the proper defendant as the entity that oversees the hospital. Worldwide amended its lawsuit accordingly.
VIGHHFC, also known as the territorial hospital board, argued it was not responsible for contracts JFL’s management signed. The court rejected that argument, finding that Virgin Islands law actually requires the board to delegate day-to-day operational authority — including contracting — to the hospital’s staff and governing board.
When Worldwide filed its motion for summary judgment in October 2025, VIGHHFC — represented by the Office of the Attorney General — chose not to file a response, affirmatively telling the court it would not be responding at all. That left the judge with no choice but to accept Worldwide’s version of the facts as true, and in February the court ruled in Worldwide’s favor on the question of liability.
The March 30 evidentiary hearing resolved the remaining question of how much is owed. Attorney Andrew Simpson appeared on behalf of Worldwide, while attorney Royette Russell represented the territorial hospital board. The court accepted Worldwide’s accounting, which was based on a spreadsheet the company maintained throughout the entire relationship documenting every invoice and every payment received.
Worldwide made a significant concession in calculating interest. Rather than applying the tiered interest rates the parties had negotiated — which would have produced an even larger number — the company calculated interest at a flat 15% per annum on the full unpaid balance from the date of the last invoice in October 2013. The court found that simplified approach was at least $1.78 million less than what Worldwide was technically entitled to under the agreed rates.
The final judgment of $12,137,664.84 included $4,220,704.35 in unpaid invoices, $7,894,688.34 in prejudgment interest, $21,132.50 in attorneys’ fees, and $1,139.65 in court costs.
