More than two years after central Louisiana’s publicly-owned charity hospital was closed, a legal dispute remains unsettled about whether state senators violated the law in agreeing to shutter the facility.
A three-judge appeals court panel heard arguments today on a 2014 lawsuit accusing the Louisiana Senate of flouting the open meetings law in its handling of legislation authorizing then-Gov. Bobby Jindal to close the LSU-run hospital in Pineville, the Huey P. Long Medical Center, in 2014.
Lawyers representing a public hospital patient, an employees union and former workers at the facility argue the Senate gave too few hours’ notice for the public to weigh in on the hospital closure, and a state district judge agreed the process was improper.
The Senate and LSU appealed the decision to Louisiana’s 1st Circuit Court of Appeal, with their attorneys saying senators followed the law and their internal rules.
“This was not a cloak and dagger situation,” says lawyer John Parker Jr., representing LSU.
The appeals court panel didn’t immediately rule, though two of the judges appeared skeptical about second-guessing the lawmakers. They cited a provision in the open meetings law that gives the House and Senate exceptions from certain notice requirements during legislative sessions and allows them to craft their own rules.
