Local Arthritis Foundation settles in court, loses building
In 1995, a benefactor left $1.25 million to create a permanent home.
When Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody two years ago filed suit to block the sale of the West Palm Beach headquarters of the Arthritis Foundation, those with the debilitating disease and the doctors who treat them cheered.
Those cheers evaporated this summer as word spread that the lawsuit had been settled, the two-story building on Hibiscus Street had been sold for $4.5 million and no money would be set aside for free clinics to help those who suffer from a vast array of degenerative joint ailments.
“It was terrible. It was a sham,” said Dr. Michael Schweitz, a rheumatologist who has been volunteering at the clinic for four decades. “The settlement basically gave us nothing. We basically are left out in the cold.”
The unusual lawsuit pitted Schweitz and other local rheumatologists against the national office of the Arthritis Foundation. In what local doctors saw as a money grab, the Georgia-based foundation in 2021 quietly put the 20-year-old building on the market, negotiated a sale with a Jupiter development company and evicted the local office from the building that bears its name.
The power of a benefactor’s will
With the help of arthritis sufferer state Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, local supporters urged Moody to use her power overseeing charities to challenge the planned sale.
They argued that it violated the terms of a will that allowed the headquarters to be built in 2001.
When Fort Pierce resident Mary Greissler died in 1995, she left $1.25 million to what was then the seven-county Mid-East Florida Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation so it could build a permanent home.
“The remainder of the funds shall be used to expand local programs and services so as to reach and help more individuals in this area with the crippling disease of arthritis," Greissler wrote in her will.
In the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General William Stafford insisted Greissler’s will trumped the desires of the national office to cash in on the downtown property boom that caused the 12,000-square-foot building to more than triple in value.
"The decision of the National Office to sell the property is contrary to and in violation of the will," Stafford wrote in the 2021 lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
In addition, he asked a judge to order the national office to provide a full accounting of the money it has collected from other non-profits, such as the Palm Beach Symphony and the Black Chamber of Commerce, which lease offices in the building. Citing the terms of Greissler’s will, he argued that the rent money also belongs to the local arthritis group.
This year, after the settlement was inked, Stafford said it turned out the case was on shaky legal ground.
While no one from the attorney general’s office returned several requests for comment, in an email to Schweitz, Stafford said the suit faced several daunting hurdles.
Precedent and concessions
The main problem was that others have lost similar cases, he wrote.
In a lawsuit involving homes built for disabled adults, for instance, the 5th District Court of Appeal in 1999 allowed the buildings to be sold even though the person who donated the property intended them to be permanent homes for the handicapped.
“The object of the gift was carried out — the two homes were built and were operated for almost 15 years," the court ruled.
Stafford also pointed out that the national office made some concessions. It agreed to spend $1.7 million from the property sale on programs specifically for those who suffer arthritis in the seven-county district, including Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties.
According to the settlement agreement, the money will be used to expand patient support groups, line up health care experts to give lectures about living with the disease and offer additional programs for children with arthritis. A full-time staffer will be hired to oversee the beefed-up services and other activities in the seven counties and Broward and Miami-Dade counties as well, it said in the settlement agreement.
The national group also agreed to provide annual reports to the attorney general’s office to assure its promises are carried out.
Despite the concessions, it was adamant that none of the money could be used to pay for the long-running clinics.
“I am aware that this is probably not the outcome you were hoping for, but it (is the) best result under the circumstances,” Stafford told Schweitz.
‘We’re going to be scrambling’
Schweitz and others said that the clinics are the heart of the local organization’s operations. Without health insurance, those with arthritis in all of its various and painful forms can’t get the life-altering drugs they need. Often, they needlessly end up housebound in wheelchairs.
The $1.7 million — or even a portion of it — could have been used to create an endowment, Schweitz said.
“It would have allowed us to continue clinic services forever and possibly expand to other cities in Florida,” said Schweitz, who retired last year and still volunteers at the clinics. “We can’t do that without additional money.”
The clinics are inexpensive to operate, he said. Some 14 rheumatologists volunteer their time and, since they were kicked out of the downtown office building, have seen the patients in their offices. Drug companies donate medicine and imaging companies that provide X-rays and MRIs charge deeply discounted rates.
The main cost is the roughly $50,000 annual salary of Barbara Floering, who for nearly two decades has scheduled appointments and helped patients fill out paperwork. In the last year, the clinic has served about 100 people who visit the volunteer doctors four or five times a year.
Schweitz said he has long known that the national office didn’t like the clinics, believed to be the only ones in the country under the foundation’s umbrella. While officials at the national office didn’t respond to emails for comment, in the past a spokesman said the foundation isn’t in the business of providing direct patient care.
But, Schweitz said, the need is great. Without insurance, people with arthritis have nowhere to turn.
For the foreseeable future, the clinics will continue, he said. CreakyJoints, another national arthritis foundation, has contributed money and grants are being sought from other agencies, Schweitz said.
“We’re going to be scrambling,” he said.
As for the building, it was purchased by FLF Holdings. While many expect it will be replaced with a high-rise condominium, there are no current plans to raze the building, said Josh Simon, founder and managing member of the firm. He said he is looking for a single tenant to occupy the building.
Floering and Schweitz used the same word to describe the predicament: sad.
“We all had our fingers crossed,” Floering said. “We were so disappointed. We just feel like the AG’s office rolled over.”
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