A Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state's 2019 medical aid-in-dying law, holding that a doctor and two others named as plaintiffs had neither legal standing nor the constitutional right to interfere with a terminally ill person's choice to end his or her life.

In his 37-page ruling issued late Wednesday, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy granted a motion by state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal to dismiss the complaint in Glassman v. Grewal, which sought to overturn the controversial law.

"Plaintiffs' constitutional and other challenges to the Act all fail as a matter of law," wrote Lougy, who took on the case after the January retirement of Superior Court Judge Paul Innes. Innes had originally ruled on the case in August 2019.

"Amicus' challenge fares no better. Accordingly, the Court dismisses the complaint with prejudice," Lougy wrote.

"The language of Article I [of the New Jersey Constitution] does not establish a constitutional or fundamental right to protect or defend the lives of others, nor, in the absence of any precedent that says otherwise, is the Court persuaded that any such right exists, particularly to the extent it would curtail the rights to privacy of capable terminally ill patients to determine the course of their own medical treatment," Lougy said.

Yosef Glassman, a physician in Englewood, was the lead plaintiff, joined by Manish Pujara, a pharmacist in Paramus, and a terminally ill cancer patient named Anthony Petro.

The three squared off against state Grewal, the defendant, over the legitimacy and constitutionality of the aid-in-dying law. The law allows mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live to get a prescription medication they can decide to take to die peacefully in their sleep, if their suffering becomes unbearable.

Robert Lougy. (Photo: Carmen Natale/ALM)

In Wednesday's ruling, Lougy wrote: "Here, the State has a legitimate interest, perhaps even a compelling interest, in establishing a safe and effective procedure for qualified terminally ill patients to experience a humane and dignified death. The Legislature is the proper branch of government to establish guidelines surrounding the public policy and regulations of end-of-life decision-making."

E. David Smith at Bloomfield-based Smith & Associates, who was co-counsel for Glassman with colleague Richard W. Grohmann, said he was disappointed with the ruling.

"Definitely, not what we wanted," Smith said in a phone call Thursday. "It's very flawed. Any lawyer in the state should be alarmed that any courthouse in New Jersey is closed to test this law just because it's so carefully drafted."

"This should really cause the legal community to be up in arms that a law can have no plaintiff to challenge it," Smith said. "The state's position is, since the three [plaintiffs] were not involved in the act of killing, they were not harmed and, therefore, they cannot have damages."

Lougy affirmed previous courts that found that the plaintiffs failed to show cause for relief. "Five months have elapsed … and Plaintiffs have not added any factual allegations of harm. Therefore, Plaintiffs' application fails the first prong of the Crowe factors test," Lougy wrote.

"The Court finds that Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a claim against the Act because its enforcement, and this Court's determination, does not harm or affect them in any cognizable way," Lougy said.

Smith said his client was exploring an appeal.

"I believe an appeal to the state Supreme Court is winnable," Smith said. "My client is working to make it financially feasible and have others share the burden and fund a legal defense fund. That's the discussion right now."

Leland Moore, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said, "We have no comment. The decision speaks for itself."

Advocates for assisted dying praised Lougy's decision to have the case thrown out.                        

"We thank Attorney General Grewal for defending this law, so terminally ill New Jerseyans continue to have this peaceful dying option," said Kevin Díaz, chief of legal advocacy for Compassion & Choices, which has been involved in litigation over medical aid-in-dying laws in California, Oregon and Vermont.

"We are grateful that the superior court recognized that there are terminally ill New Jersey residents who are counting on this end-of-life care option to bring peace of mind during this difficult time," said Alan Howard of Perkins Coie, who has been monitoring the case locally for Compassion & Choices.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Medical Aid-in-Dying for the Terminally Ill Act in April 2019, making New Jersey the eighth jurisdiction in the country to allow terminally ill adult patients with less than six months to live to end their own lives. New Jersey joined Oregon, Washington, the District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Vermont and Hawaii.

The law became effective Aug. 1, but a mandatory waiting period made Aug. 16 the first date that drugs would be available.

Glassman moved swiftly to temporary suspend the law right after it went into effect. On Aug. 14, Judge Innes issued a temporary restraining order.

The Attorney General's Office then sought appellate review, contending that the injunction harmed patients and families relying on the law.

The Appellate Division on Aug. 27, 2019, overturned Innes's decision and reinstated the law, making it effective immediately.

"In light of the significance of the issues raised by the parties … we agreed to consider defendant's motion for leave to appeal on an expedited basis. Having reviewed the record against the applicable law, we conclude the court abused its discretion in awarding preliminary injunctive relief because plaintiff failed to satisfy the standard enunciated in Crowe v. De Gioia," the Appellate Division said in an order signed by Judge Arnold Natali. "Accordingly, we dissolve the restraints issued pursuant to the August 14, 2019 order."

Hours after the appellate court decision, the state Supreme Court denied Glassman's application to reverse it. "The court finds the plaintiff fails to satisfy the requirements for emergent relief. See Crowe v. DeGioia, 90 N.J. 126 (1982). The application is therefore denied," the state Supreme Court order  said.

Smith, on behalf of Glassman, had criticized the law in press conferences and hearings as creating a new category of individuals "that were not worthy of life"—an argument he said was even more relevant today with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The thought that people who we think are terminally ill have time to consult with advocates, physicians and family members is false," he said during Thursday's phone call. "In a situation like with coronavirus, they don't have access to any of those, and they are susceptible to suggestion."

"COVID-19 has put the state's most vulnerable citizens at more risk now than ever," and the court "cannot find a way to uphold the thousands of years of settled principle," Smith said.

In New Jersey, the law permits medical aid in dying only for residents who can prove their residence, and physicians must maintain extensive medical records of their conditions. It also differentiates the permitted care from—and continues to prohibit—assisted suicide, a second-degree crime in New Jersey.

Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester—the main sponsor of the aid-in-dying law, who spent more than six years refining it—praised the court's dismissal of the suit.

"I thought that we had done very sound work in approaching this bill with a lot of cooperation from a lot of people and that the legislation and the resulting statute were complete and thorough," Burzichelli said by phone Thursday.

"The claims made were not able to be substantiated because they were not factual. The law is pretty clear, which is what the judge said," he said.