{"id":25180,"date":"2025-11-01T14:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T14:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25180\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T14:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T14:40:08","slug":"judge-rules-in-favor-of-new-york-clerk-tosses-texas-abortion-pill-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25180\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules in favor of New York clerk, tosses Texas abortion pill lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge on Friday tossed a Texas lawsuit<\/a> seeking to hold a clerk accountable for not enforcing a ruling from the Lone Star State against an abortion provider<\/a> from the Empire State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justice David M. Gandin, who sits on the county Supreme Court, ruled in favor of Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck who refused to file a $113,000 Texas judgement against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter.<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) attempted to send the judgment<\/a> to Bruck\u2019s office twice in addition to a court summons. The clerk denied both<\/a> of Paxton\u2019s requests<\/a>, citing New York\u2019s shield law, which protects abortion providers from facing legal penalties and extradition orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Carpenter\u2019s conduct falls squarely within the definition of \u2018legally protected health activity,\u2019\u201d Gandin wrote in his decision, calling Carpenter\u2019s work \u201cthe precise type of conduct (the shield law) was designed to protect,\u201d according to The Times-Union<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The county clerk called the judge\u2019s decision \u201crefreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision confirms what we had assumed all along \u2014 that we should not have filed the Texas judgment,\u201d Bruck said in an interview Friday with The Times-Union.\u00a0 \u201cThe law seemed obvious to us, but since it was untested, certain people had questions about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest decision comes after New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in September moved to intervene in the Texas lawsuit<\/a> to defend the state\u2019s shield law.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas has no authority in New York, and no power to impose its cruel abortion ban here,\u201d James said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the case\u2019s conclusion, Bruck said he was appreciative of New York\u2019s protections for providers and those who enforce shield laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to live in New York state and have a Senate and Assembly that had the foresight to pass the shield law,\u201d Bruck told The Times-Union.\u00a0\u201cIn this first test case, it worked exactly as intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill earlier this year that allows private citizens<\/a> to sue health care providers that prescribe or distribute abortion medication<\/a>\u00a0to or from the state.<\/p>\n

In his argument against the clerk, Paxton cited the Constitution\u2019s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which urges states to regard other states\u2019 laws \u2014 leading many to believe the case against Bruck could be escalated<\/a> to the Supreme Court, the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

Gandin did not evaluate that argument, however, explaining in his decision that the Texas attorney general did not ask for an \u201cindependent declaration\u201d on the constitutionality of the shield law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state still has 30 days to appeal the ruling but has not shared plans to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge on Friday tossed a Texas lawsuit seeking to hold a clerk accountable for not enforcing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11078,15827,16098,16099,9,11,10,16100,5600,16101,7028],"class_list":["post-25180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-abortion","tag-constitution","tag-david-gandin","tag-margaret-carpenter","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-shield-law","tag-nyt","tag-texas-lawsuit","tag-times-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}