Chiropractor and bankruptcy trustee claim sale overvalued

Chiropractor Joy Carr believes that chiropractor Bradley Wilken and his wife cheated her and ruined her business. A bankruptcy trustee believes it too.

Carr and U.S. bankruptcy trustee Laura Grandy filed suit in Madison County Circuit Court Jan. 25, claiming that Wilken signed Carr to an unconscionable agreement.

Carr bought a clinic in Highland from Bradley Wilken, Donna Wilken and Pain Relief Center in 2004, according to the suit.

Carr paid $760,450 for the business and the property, according to the suit.

"The value of the business purchased by Joy Carr from the Defendants was unconscionably small compared to the value paid," attorney John Geismann of Highland wrote for Carr and Grandy.

Geismann wrote that Carr "expended substantial sums of money and received only nominal assets."

He wrote that Carr experienced failure of the business and claimed protection under Chapter 7 of U.S. bankruptcy code.

In a separate count, Geismann wrote that Wilken broke a covenant that should have kept him from doing business within 10 miles of the clinic.

Grandy has sued in partnership with bankrupt plaintiffs in at least eight Madison County suits since 1994.

In 2001, she and a plaintiff collected $34,000 in a settlement of three related suits. In 1996, she and a plaintiff won a default order for $16,920.91.