Legal wrangling over the status of a family planning clinic that provides abortion pills in Tulare has continued into the new year.
FPA Women’s Health opened last year in the Tulare Medical Center, a complex of offices near Adventist Health Tulare but unrelated to the hospital or the Tulare Local Healthcare District.
The center’s property owners’ association sued the clinic and its landlords, Leopoldo and Jennifer Valdivia, in September, pointing to association restrictions that prohibit providing or assisting in abortions at the location FPA is renting.
A duel between the two has played out since September in the Tulare County Superior Court – and now, at least one part of the case is headed to the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno.
Temporary restraining order appealed
At the outset of the case, attorneys for the Tulare Medical Center Property Owners’ Association filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent FPA from offering abortion services at its location.
At the time the case was filed, FPA’s website claimed the Tulare location would offer surgical abortions and the abortion pill; FPA’s website has since been amended and now states that it only offers the abortion pill in Tulare.
The restraining order could only be granted if the association had proof they would “ultimately prevail on the merits of [their] claim,” but Judge Bret D. Hillman declined to approve the order, stating that there was a question of whether the restrictions were legal under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The association has now appealed that decision.
Hillman wrote in his ruling that while the association’s other property owners and renters may have been disrupted by protests against the family planning clinic, they could not prove that they had suffered “irreparable harm” because of the controversy, another requirement for a temporary restraining order.
“[…] the court finds that, at this stage, the Association has not carried its burden to show a likelihood of prevailing on the issue of whether the CC&Rs violate the Unruh Civil Rights Act, or other California laws, the court also concludes that the Association fails to show that the balance of harms supports the issuance of a preliminary injunction,” Hillman wrote in his ruling. “Accordingly, the request for a preliminary injunction is denied.”
During the hearing, Hillman told an attorney for the association that he welcomed the opinion of an appellate court.
“I think you’ve got a fairly clear contractual issue here, and I think you got a lot of countervailing public policy issues and identity issues on the other side of that question. I’m perfectly willing to do what the Appellate Court wants me to do on this,” Hillman says in a court transcript, “but at this point, I don’t think it’s clear enough, as I said in the ruling, that I can find the plaintiff is going to prevail.”
The appeal was lodged with California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal on February 13; the appellate court case number is F089334. No decision has been made as of publication time.
SLAPP motion only partially granted
Late last year, attorneys for FPA and the Valdivias hit back against the property owners’ association in a cross-complaint, alleging that the bylaws are invalid or otherwise unenforceable.
The cross-complaint asked for declaratory relief – for Hillman to provide a decision and finality to the dispute over the association’s restrictions – as well as injunctive relief, asking for Hillman to bar the association from enforcing the restrictions on FPA and the Valdivias while the trial proceeded.
They also alleged that by filing their suit and “disrupting” the landlord-tenant relationship between FPA and the Valdivias, the association was interfering with contractual relations and personal finances.
That led the two sides into deeper legal mud: the association petitioned the court to dismiss the cross-complaint through an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) motion, meant to allow a quick dismissal of lawsuits that are filed because of first amendment activity.
“TMCPOA is accused of one thing by Cross-Complainants: attempting to enforce their CC&Rs – in prelitigation correspondence, mediation, and this litigation. This conduct falls squarely within the anti-SLAPP statute’s protection of the freedom of speech and right to petition,” the association’s motion read.
Hillman ruled on January 7 that while the anti-SLAPP motion could strike the parts of the cross-complaint alleging contractual and economic interference, it could not strike the parts of the complaint asking for declaratory and injunctive relief.
“[…] unlike the defendants’ declaratory relief claim, which arises from an underlying “actual controversy” concerning the validity of the CC&Rs, defendants’ contractual/economic relationship interference claims arise directly from the Association’s protected petitioning activity, since that activity is the only alleged activity of ‘interference,’” Hillman’s ruling states.
“The Association contends [FPA and the Valdivias] cannot show a probability of prevailing on their “interference” claims because Civil Code section 47 immunizes the Association’s litigation-related speech and conduct. The court agrees,” it continues.
A case management conference is scheduled for March 28, 2025 at 8:30am in Department 2 of the Tulare County Superior Court.