A group of Braddock residents who have been fighting the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center since October on Wednesday filed another suit against the hospital system challenging its tax-exempt status and demanding it reopen UPMC Braddock.

"As tax-exempt charities, defendants' primary purpose is to provide hospital care ... for citizens of Braddock and neighboring communities. Their closing of Braddock hospital violates defendants' charitable purpose," said part of the 80-page suit filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

The plaintiffs, who are asking a judge to order the re-opening of the hospital, include Braddock residents and the group Save Our Community Hospitals, a nonprofit formed last year to fight the hospital's closure.

But more than anything, said Tony Buba, a local filmmaker and co-chair of the group Save Our Community Hospitals, the group hopes that the suit will buy some time and slow UPMC's plans to demolish the hospital, set as early as June.

UPMC spokesman Paul Wood said, "This lawsuit is not fundamentally any different than the lawsuit dismissed last month by the Court of Common Pleas as being without merit factually and legally."

Representing the group is Allegheny County Councilman Charles P. McCullough, who tried to stop the hospital's closure last month through an emergency or temporary injunction, which was thrown out by Common Pleas Judge Gene Strassburger.

Unlike his last attempt, when he sought to stop the hospital's closure in his capacity as a county councilman, Mr. McCullough, R-Upper St. Clair, said he is simply the attorney of record this time.

He said that UPMC is a "quasi-public entity" and that because of its tax-exempt status, debt financing through county and state secured bonds, it cannot arbitrarily close its hospital in a community like Braddock, where it primarily serves poor people who are predominantly black.

"[UPMC] cannot summarily destroy a hospital, which it holds in trust for the people," said Mr. McCullough, who is also asking for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its King's Bench power to take immediate jurisdiction over the case.

King's Bench refers to a legal practice that dictates that the highest court in the land has the power to seize a case from a lower court.

Meanwhile, Mr. McCullough also has appealed to Judge Strassburger's denial of an emergency injunction to stop the hospital's closure to Superior Court. He said UPMC's decision might have been unpopular, but not illegal.

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