There's No Place Like Home, C.E.O. Version

Former HealthSouth chief executive and current federal convict Richard Scrushy is understandably eager to leave the confines (such as they are) of the unfenced federal correctional facility in Texas where he is serving more than six years for bribery.

But he's evidently not so eager to leave prison that he'd return to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

Lawyers want him to come back to Birmingham to testify in civil fraud suit that HealthSouth shareholders have lodged against the rehabilitation-hospital chain, its banker (UBS) and its auditor (Ernst & Young) over a $1 billion accounting fraud that nearly bankrupted the company.

A federal judge ordered federal marshals to deliver Scrushy to Birmingham for a videotaped deposition in the case, but Martin Adams, a lawyer representing the ex-C.E.O., said Scrushy would fight the order.

"It's just an objection to travel," added Adams, who is also Scrushy's son-in-law. He noted that if lawyers in the civil suit wanted to come visit Scrushy in Texas, the former executive would be "happy to tell his side of the story."

The civil-suit standoff, which came just days after Scrushy filed an appeal to overturn his 2006 conviction, has rubbed at least one of plaintiffs' lawyers the wrong way.

"His arrogance is just overwhelming," Doug Jones said. "He wants 20 or 25 lawyers and their staffs to trek to Beaumont to see him."

by Mark Stein