Hospital case set for high court.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has set April 30 as the hearing date in the latest chapter to determine control of Portsmouth Regional Hospital.

The ongoing legal battle between the Foundation of Seacoast Health and the hospital's corporate parent, Hospital Corp. of America began in 2006.

The foundation is appealing a June 2007 decision by a Rockingham Superior Court judge who ruled in favor of HCA. The country's largest for-profit hospital chain was sold to a private equity group in a $33 billion stock and debt-assumption private equity sale in 2006.

Judge Kenneth R. McHugh agreed with HCA, which maintained the sale was a stock transfer and the hospital's assets were not for sale, meaning the right-of-first-refusal clause would not be triggered.

Dan Hoefle, the foundation's chairman, says McHugh "erred" in his ruling by making a too narrow interpretation of the original 1983 sale agreement--which Hoefle believes was intentionally broad to protect the community from the hospital being hurt by corporate maneuvering far away from Portsmouth.