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The war of words over the ownership of Bayonne Medical Center flared again on Feb. 22, with one side threatening a lawsuit over alleged defamatory statements and the other calling that threat an attempt to stifle discussion over a matter of public interest.

Hudson Regional Hospital and BMC Hospital LLC have been battling for months over control of the medical center. In August 2020 Hudson Regional acquired the property on which BMC is situated for $76 million. CarePoint Health, which is operating the hospital, has been leasing the property since then but Hudson Regional said it terminated the lease on Dec. 31 and began eviction proceedings in Delaware.

The latest salvo was a cease-and-desist letter from James Flynn, an attorney for BMC Hospital. The letter was itself a response to a news release issued by a spokesperson for Hudson Regional setting out a series of claims about the status of BMC Hospital’s bid. Among Hudson Regional’s assertions was the suggestion that BMC Hospital had abandoned its lawsuit over the ownership dispute, that HRH had essentially prevailed in the litigation and that the state Health Department was no longer considering BMC Hospital’s application for a certificate of need to operate the facility. In addition, Hudson Regional contended that BMC Hospital, which comprises a group of health care investors led by Wayne Hatami, had not issued any public filings related to its finances for more than a year.

Flynn, a member and managing director at Epstein Becker & Green PC in Newark, denied all the allegations and demanded that Hudson Regional retract the statement. “This false, misleading, and maliciously tortious document is filled with defamatory and actionable falsehoods, including many that are defamatory per se, leaving your clients exposed to liability for substantial provable and presumable compensatory damages, punitive damages, and further legal and equitable liabilities, if not retracted and ended,” he wrote in the letter addressed to Thomas Abbate, a partner at DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick, Cole & Giblin in Teaneck.

Specifically, Flynn said that BMC Hospital’s legal claims had been dismissed “with prejudice” — meaning that they could be revived later. “Second, HRH’s positions were not vindicated — HRH itself filed one affirmative motion seeking dismissal of three counts of BMC’s complaint, and that motion was denied without even a grant of oral argument,” Flynn wrote.

The lawyer also insisted that the Health Department is continuing to review his client’s certificate of need applications. “Again, not only do your clients know that to be untrue, but you do as well, because HRH’s December 11th request that DOH stop its review was rejected,” he continued.

In addition, Flynn insisted that BMC Hospital had publicly disclosed information about its finances in June, July, October and November 2020. “You personally have received copies of such filings on multiple occasions since June 2020, i.e. over the last eight months,” Flynn wrote.

In response to the letter and the litigation threat, a Hudson Regional spokesperson said via email that the hospital would not retract the Feb. 18 statement. “As our report was filed in the public interest and is a legitimate expression of concern about a regulated health care enterprise nothing in our report rises to the level of defamation or creates among us any concern that if brought, such a matter would succeed,” the statement reads. “Further, truth is an absolute defense and everything we said was true.  If BMC were to file such a suit, the public  would finally have access to information that BMC and CarePoint Health have long withheld.”