This afternoon, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet L. Sanders will hear arguments on two closely-related motions filed by the Ten Taxpayer Group comprising Friends of the Prouty Garden in its pending lawsuit against Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) and state public health officials. With the parties’ legal briefs already on file with the court, this will essentially be the hearing on the merits of the Prouty Garden court case.

The lawsuit alleges, among several other points, that BCH began construction activities associated with a massive new $1 billion clinical tower in violation of state laws and regulations governing hospital expansions in Massachusetts, as well as in violation of conditions of the Determination of Need (DoN) the state granted to greenlight the project last October. The lawsuit names as defendants BCH, as well as DPH Commissioner Monica Bharel and Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders, and alleges that DPH “approved the largest project in DoN program history based on a guess.”

Supported by members of the Friends of the Prouty Garden –a world-renowned healing garden destroyed to make way for the clinical tower, the lawsuit argues that DPH’s approval of the BCH project “was arbitrary, capricious, contrary to law, an abuse of discretion, and illegal,” and urges the Court to vacate the state’s decision. Two motions filed earlier this summer (motion to amend the lawsuit and motion for judgment on the pleadings) will be subjects of the same hearing.