AUBURN – St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center’s parent company is suing three doctors it claims breached their contracts when they quit to work for a competing hospital across town.

The 32-month agreements, which took effect in January 2004, prohibited each of the doctors from practicing medicine within a 25-mile radius of Sisters of Charity Health System, Inc. at 99 Campus Ave. within two years after they stopped working for the hospital, according to a complaint filed in Androscoggin County Superior Court. The contracts also prohibited them from working directly, or indirectly, for Central Maine Medical Center’s parent corporation or any of its subsidiaries, the suit said.

The three doctors named as defendants are Douglas Farrago, M.D., Carolyn Kase, D.O., and Raymond Stone, D.O.

A clause in the agreements provides the option of paying $100,000 to Sisters of Charity rather than waiting the two-year period, the suit said, but none of the doctors made such a payment after leaving.

All three doctors notified St. Mary’s that they planned to leave at the end of 2006. Last fall, Sisters of Charity learned that the three would be joining Central Maine Medical Center Family Practice, an affiliate and/or agent of Central Maine Medical Center. That business is located in Lewiston within a 25-mile radius of Sisters of Charity offices.

The suit says the nonprofit health care organization never waived the required waiting period or alternative $100,000 escape clause with the three doctors.

Sisters of Charity hopes to collect a “reasonable” judgment against the three defendants, plus interest, costs and attorney’s fees.

A spokeswoman for the hospital said in a statement that St. Mary’s wishes the doctors well, but seek fairness stemming from the original agreements.

“We at the Sisters of Charity Health System respect the decision of Drs. Carolyn Kase, Ray Stone and Doug Farrago to seek employment elsewhere. We have no interest in interfering with their new practice or the relationships they may have established with patients while working with Sisters of Charity.

“Sisters of Charity made a significant investment in promoting these doctors in their practice and introducing them to patients. When these doctors started with us, they signed a contract that included an agreement not to compete in the community after they left employment with Sisters of Charity. However, the doctors may still practice in the community if they comply with the terms of the contract by reimbursing Sisters of Charity Health System for its investment. Contract clauses such as these ensure Sisters of Charity the ability to provide access to primary care in the community.”

Michael Poulin, attorney for the doctors, said Wednesday the suit would discourage good doctors from staying in the community. The three doctors opted to leave St. Mary’s and practice at CMMC instead, Poulin said. If they couldn’t have worked there, they would have left the community, he said.

“It just doesn’t make sense” to require them to pay $100,000 or leave the Twin Cities while the two hospitals are, at “great expense,” actively recruiting good doctors to come to the area, he said. “These are good doctors.”

Farrago has achieved minor celebrity with his humorous observations about the medical profession. He created and edited the “The Placebo Journal,” a bimonthly magazine filled with offbeat doctors stories, and authored “The Placebo Chronicles,” a book that includes medical jokes, stories and pictures.

Farrago also is inventor of the “Knee Saver,” a device used by baseball catchers that fits in their knee joints and cushions thighs against their calves.