The city of Beverly Hills will have to turn over a trove of communications from City Council members and other officials as a result of a Los Angeles Superior Court decision involving an abortion clinic lease dispute.
Judge Anne Richardson issued the ruling on May 13 in favor of the DuPont Clinic PC, whose lease to open an abortion clinic in the city was rescinded last year. Richardson’s ruling allows the plaintiff to move forward with the discovery process against the city, which had filed a motion to designate the litigation a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).
DuPont, which operates a clinic in Washington, D.C., had sought to open a clinic in the Los Angeles area at a location operated by Douglas Emmett Management LLC, which ultimately rescinded a lease agreement after the city approved permits.
“... Sadly, instead of opening its clinic to provide critical health care to people in need, DuPont has been forced to cease construction, evacuate the premises and pursue legal action on behalf of a clinic that may never open,” the original lawsuit states. “... The city bowed to politics and to the pressure of extremist anti-abortion protesters. The city’s actions directly interfered with the reproductive freedom guaranteed by Article 1 (of the state constitution). …”
The Beverly Hills city attorney later expressed concerns that the clinic’s plans could violate California law, according to the original complaint.
As a result of the judge’s decision, the city will have to turn over records of five City Council members and multiple city administrators, including emails, text messages and information from social media accounts.
In an email to the Southern California Record, a city spokeswoman indicated that Beverly Hills has already provided more than 3,000 pages of documents to plaintiffs.
“(On May 13) DuPont argued that this (discovery) request was necessary to respond to the city’s motion to dismiss the vast majority of the case, known as an anti-SLAPP motion,” the city’s statement says. “The court partially granted DuPont’s motion and continued the hearing on the city’s anti-SLAPP motion until September. The city will comply with the court’s ruling and is looking forward to the September hearing on its anti-SLAPP motion.”
The city also emphasized that it strongly supports abortion rights.
“The decision to rescind DuPont Clinic’s lease was not made by the city of Beverly Hills,” the statement says.
The Stop DuPont Clinic website states that an email from the deputy city manager last summer indicated that the clinic’s lease had been rescinded.
“Initial efforts to stop DuPont Clinic included meeting with the Beverly Hills City Council and California state senators to bring awareness of the extreme nature of DuPont Clinic and the many negative impacts it would have on the community,” a website post states.
The clinic had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on permits and building renovations, but as of July 2023, it had not received a license from the California Department of Health, according to clinic opponents.
The critics have characterized the clinic as extreme because it would have performed elective abortions through 31 weeks and six days of pregnancy. A fetus is generally considered viable at 24 weeks, according to U.S. medical textbooks. The World Health Organization says in some cases, a fetus could be considered viable as early as 20 weeks.
The clinic seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages and an award of attorney’s fees and court costs.