Planned Parenthood expects to open its new Brighton clinic in early January, after a judge dismissed a lawsuit this month seeking to halt the facility.
The new location at Westfall Road and South Clinton Avenue is next to the temporary center it has operated since June 2021.
Opponents have waged a years-long legal battle to block Planned Parenthood from opening a second permanent location. The nonprofit’s University Avenue clinic in the city will not be affected by the addition.
State Supreme Court Justice Elena Cariola dismissed the latest lawsuit in a decision filed Dec. 12.
“The efforts to derail this project have been nothing more than an attempt to obstruct access to vital health care for our patients,” Michelle Casey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York, said in a statement. “With this ruling, we look forward to opening our new clinic in Brighton and continuing to provide a full range of expert sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion."
The latest lawsuit — brought by Brighton Residents Against Violence to Everyone, Roc Love and Carol Crossed — had argued that state oversight agencies erred in signing off on the project. Cariola disagreed, finding instead that the opponents had misinterpreted the law, lacked standing to bring the lawsuit and were late in filing it.
Some of those matters could be the subject of an appeal, which the opponents' attorney, Linda Clemente, said they are considering. Specifically, she pointed to questions of who has standing to challenge the Department of Health. And how prior state approvals can be revived, extended and amended, which shifts the deadline to raise challenges.
Whether an appeal could affect the clinic opening is unclear.
Planned Parenthood had sought attorneys fees, claiming the action was “frivolous.” Casey, in her statement, described it as “ideologically driven.”
Cariola, though, declined to impose sanctions, writing that while she was “deeply concerned” by the opponents’ tactics – including a litany of motions raising new and changing arguments, and scrambling the case schedule – "the overwhelming majority of arguments presented were substantive in nature.”
