An Alabama state court ordered HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy in June to fork over $2.88 billion to shareholders for his role in a massive accounting scam. Now comes the hard part for the shareholders, according to a Wall Street Journal article -- getting the money out of Mr. Scrushy, who is 2 years into a 7-year sentence in federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, in a separate political-bribery case and apparently in no hurry to make good on the largest civil judgment ever against a single executive.

HealthSouth shareholders sued Mr. Scrushy in civil court for the damage done to the company by the accounting fraud (he was acquitted in 2005 of criminal charges related to the HealthSouth fraud, which he said was perpetrated by other company executives without his knowledge).

Dan O'Connor