SPRINGFIELD -- CoxHealth agrees with federal prosecutors that a civil lawsuit by two former employees against the hospital should be delayed.  Attorneys for the health care company filed documents on Thursday in response to a previous motion by prosecutors to intervene in the wrongful termination case.

   Prosecutors want a judge to delay discovery – pretrial interviews and document subpoenas – in the lawsuit because they say discovery could interfere with a criminal investigation into Medicare billing practices by CoxHealth.  The former workers say their cooperation with investigators is the reason they were fired.  They argue delay in discovery could lead to destruction of evidence that is crucial to their claims.

  In CoxHealth’s court papers, Cox attorneys said Dennis Morris and Roger Cochran were fired because "they were terrible leaders, ruled by fear and intimidation … and maintained a hostile work environment."  Cox says the company itself, not Morris and Cochran, exposed questionable billing practices to the government.

   While agreeing that a delay in the lawsuit is appropriate, Cox attorneys object to the government's naming of top Cox executives as subjects and targets of the criminal investigation even though no one has been charged with a crime.

  A federal judge now must decide whether to grant the delay.