By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A court order blocking the release of financial records from the now shuttered St. Vincent's Hospital is being challenged again by advocates demanding a new full-service hospital.
The Coalition for a New Village Hospital planned to challenge the U.S. Bankruptcy Court's ruling, made last fall, in court on Friday.
The group wants access to Department of Health records that relate to the Greenwich Village hospital's closure in April last year. St. Vincent's had debts of more than $1 billion and is subject to a lawsuit claiming mismanagement.
"The public has an unencumbered right to access public documents," said civil rights lawyer Yetta Kurland, who is representing the coalition.
"We believe there's a strong and compelling legal and policy basis for this."
But in September, Judge Cecelia Morris, who is handling the lawsuit against St. Vincent's, found that her court's ability to do its job in the bankruptcy trial superseded that right.
"The petitioner's alleged right to public information must yield to the debtor's right to reorganize," Morris said before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Additionally, while Kurland has maintained that the lawsuit is a simple matter of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), Morris objected to an attachment of affidavits that accused the hospital of wasteful expenditures, including a $300,000 golf event and $10 million in annual executive salaries.
Those accusations, Morris said, represent an attempt to conduct discovery for a fraud case — a matter in the exclusive jurisdiction of the court.
"The motivation of the petitioners is highly relevant in bankruptcy court," Morris said in September.
The appeal follows an announcement last month of a massive redevelopment deal that will bring a comprehensive care center and apartment complex to the former St. Vincent's site.
That plan must first be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. A hearing is scheduled for April 7.
