Garth Brooks Wins $1M From Hospital in Donation Flap

An Oklahoma hospital in Garth Brooks' hometown must pay $1 million to the country singer because it failed to build a women's health center in honor of his late mother, jurors ruled this evening. Jurors ruled that the hospital must return a $500,000 donation to Brooks, plus pay him $500,000 in punitive damages in Brooks' breach-of-contract lawsuit against IntegrisCanadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon. Brooks said he thought he'd reached a deal in 2005 with the hospital's president, but sued after learning the hospital wanted to use the money for other construction projects.

The hospital argued that Brooks gave it unrestricted access to the money and only later asked that it build a women's center and name it after his mother, Colleen Brooks, who died of cancer in 1999. During the trial, Brooks testified that the hospital president initially suggested putting his mother's name on an intensive care unit, and when Brooks said that wouldn't fit her image, the president suggested a women's health center. "I jumped all over it," Brooks told jurors in tearful testimony. "It's my mom. My mom was pregnant as a teenager. She had a rough start. She wanted to help every kid out there." (More Garth Brooks stories.)