Globe Reports ‘Favorable’ Ruling in Suit by Local Hospital Owner

Essent renamed the Hale Hospital as Merrimack Valley Hospital.

The Boston Globe says it has received a “favorable” judge’s ruling in a suit brought against the newspaper by Steward Health Care System, owner of hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen.

Suffolk Superior Court Jeffrey Locke reportedly denied Steward access to the Globe’s notes on a story of a man who traveled through the mental health care system. The Globe said Steward also unsuccessfully sought to release the man’s private medical records to “rebut” this weekend’s planned article.

“What we object to is Steward’s thinly-veiled intimidation tactic against a former patient,” Globe editor Brian McGrory, said in a statement issued before the hearing. “The fact that the company dispatched a constable, at dusk, to the house of a man with a history of mental illness is somewhere between appalling and unconscionable.”