Medinex Systems Inc., of Post Falls, says it will ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for permission to liquidate its assets.


Medinex, which in November filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, says if the court doesnt allow it to liquidate voluntarily, it will be forced into liquidation under Chapter 7. Medinex made that statement in a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


The Post Falls company makes software and provides Internet-based services for medical practices.


According to the Jan. 24 SEC filing, Medinex hadnt asked the court yet for permission to liquidate, but had informed the court that it intended to file a plan of liquidation through a controlled sale of all assets through a two-phase process. The SEC filing is a required notice of a significant change in a companys status.


Spokane attorney John Munding, who is representing Medinex in bankruptcy court, says a liquidation plan hopefully will be filed by the end of this week, referring to Jan. 31.


In the SEC filing, the company says that as of Dec. 31 it had total assets of about $282,000 and total liabilities of about $3.3 million. The largest chunk of the companys assets at that timeabout $111,000was made up of accounts receivable, although Medinex also had about $63,000 in cash. Medinex also said in the SEC filing that it had accumulated losses, listed as negative retained earnings, of $46 million.


At one time, the company was considered one of the Inland Northwests dot-com success stories, with a $21 million initial public offering of shares, and 180 employees.


When the technology economy nose-dived, Medinexpreviously call-ed Netivation.com Inc.sold a division that provided politically oriented content via the Internet and concentrated on its medical-products division. Last summer the company moved from North Idaho, but in November it fired CEO Anthony Paquin, who had helped launch Medinex, and returned to Idaho. The company employed 12 people in December, say court documents associated with its Chapter 11 filing.


Elsewhere in those documents, Medinex says it paid Paquin about $194,000 from January through October last year, and paid his wife, Kelly McCarthy Paquin, the companys former executive vice president, about $31,000 during that same period. David Paquin, Anthony Paquins brother, was paid about $37,000 from January through June last year as human-resources manager and chief financial officer. Colin Christie, Medinexs current CEO and former chief operating officer, was paid $166,250 from January through November last year.