The ruling overturns a 2018 verdict awarding compensatory and punitive damages to the woman who was abused as a child in the mid-2000s by a member of the Thompson Falls Jehovah’s Witness congregation.
The hospitals involved include Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital, Billings Clinic, St. Peter’s Health in Helena, Community Medical Center in Missoula and Northern Montana Hospital in Havre.
They say U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Paul O’Neill detained them in a parking lot in Havre last year in violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizures.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May that the Montana law violated the First Amendment by banning any mention of an ethics complaints before the commissioner issues a ruling.