PROVO, Utah — One day after the Utah Supreme Court revived the sexual assault lawsuit against a Provo OB-GYN and two healthcare systems, one of the alleged victims is elated to share that their fight is not over.

Back in 2008, Brooke Heath was rushed to Utah Valley Hospital in premature labor. That’s where she said she met Dr. David Broadbent.

“I didn’t ask to go to him, that was the doctor on duty and he was assigned to me,” Heath said.

She’s one of the 94 women who filed a lawsuit against Dr. Broadbent, Intermountain Healthcare and MountainStar Health Care. The women accused Dr. Broadbent of sexually assaulting them during medical exams over decades.

Some of the plaintiffs claimed the abuse happened before and after giving birth. Others, as young as nineteen, claimed “it was her first appointment with a doctor other than her pediatrician” and “did not know what to expect or what was normal.”

“It’s pretty powerful to hear story after story after story that’s told to you independently that has a pattern to it,” said Terry Rooney, one of the attorneys representing the women.

A lower court judge previously dismissed the women’s lawsuit, ruling that it should have been filed as a medical malpractice case instead of a civil sexual assault lawsuit. That would have limited the window of time they could sue and limit any financial damages they could receive.

In a ruling handed down on Thursday, the state’s top court reversed a lower court’s decision to throw out their lawsuit.

“We’re actually going to have more than 94 [women] when it gets refiled. The number is uncertain yet but it could be approaching 200 women when it gets refiled,” said Rooney.

In the Utah Supreme Court’s ruling, Justice Petersen said “we conclude that the Malpractice Act does not apply to the Plaintiffs’ claims because they have not brought an action ‘based upon alleged personal injuries relating to or arising out of health care rendered’ by Broadbent.”

“It’s important to note that there are three defendants in this case,” said Heath. “Our goal is to hold them all accountable for their actions and lack thereof.”

MountainStar Healthcare wrote, “We continue to offer our sympathy and support to any individuals who may have experienced this alleged behavior at the physician’s private clinic in Provo.”

“To our knowledge, there were no allegations of inappropriate conduct reported to our facility regarding this physician, and as such our position since this lawsuit was filed has been that we were inappropriately named in the suit. This physician is not and was not employed by Timpanogos Regional Hospital and is not currently authorized to see patients at our facility,” the statement said.

Utah Valley Hospital also sent a statement, saying, “Dr. Broadbent is an independent physician and has never been an employee of Utah Valley Hospital.”

The statement also said that when “the hospital learned of this lawsuit, Dr. Broadbent’s hospital staff privileges were immediately suspended and then terminated.”

Dr. Broadbent, through his previous attorney, has denied wrongdoing. State officials said he has, however, agreed to stop practicing medicine while the case plays out in the court system.

Utah’s Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Friday that there was any way for them to require hundreds of ballots postmarked after the state’s deadline to be counted, even though the votes could potentially change the outcome in a race decided by 176 votes.

Attorneys for 2nd Congressional District Republican candidate Colby Jenkins made their last-ditch effort to get the ballots counted, arguing that they were dropped in mailboxes before the postmark deadline but stamped late because they had to be shipped to Las Vegas to be processed.

But lawyers for the state argued that the law is clear — that ballots postmarked after the deadline cannot be counted — and that they are unable to dictate to the U.S. Postal Service how to handle mail.

While the justices did not rule on the arguments Friday, they appeared to be inclined to let Rep. Celeste Maloy’s 176-vote victory stand. The court will likely issue its ruling within the next week or two.

Jenkin’s attorney, Anthony Ferate, argued that the state’s mail-in voting law improperly outsources an important election function to the Postal Service, which can interfere with some voters getting their ballots counted. That interference, he contends, violates Utah’s Constitution.

But Justice Diana Hagen pushed back on that notion, questioning if the court has the authority to order the ballots counted despite the legal deadline and noting that other options,  like dropboxes and voting in person, were available options.

“Isn’t the voter ultimately responsible for ensuring it’s postmarked?” she asked. “The postmark requirement isn’t something unique to this statute. Taxes, job applications, college applications, they all have to be postmarked. … How is that not the voters responsibility?”

Justice Jill Pohlman echoed the sentiment, pressing Ferate on why the postal service is responsible “as opposed to the voter’s obligation?”

“Why does the voter’s obligation end by sticking it in a mailbox on Sunday instead of getting it postmarked?” she asked. Washington County, she said, has recognized there can be delays and warned voters to mail their ballots early.

“A warning doesn’t fix a constitutional violation,” Ferate said. “Just to say we warned you doesn’t fix that.”

Sarah Goldberg, the attorney representing the lieutenant governor’s office, said that the lieutenant governor and county clerks followed the statute and notified voters of the different methods of voting. With mail-in ballots, the law prohibits clerks from counting votes that are postmarked after the deadline.

“Put an end to these arguments so the respondents can have certainty as to the results of the election,” Goldberg asked the justices.

Jenkins’ campaign contends that 1,171 votes in several rural counties were disqualified in the election because they were shipped to Las Vegas to be processed, causing days of delays — in one instance, allegedly a full week — and meaning they missed the postmark deadline.

Jenkins won Washington County 59% to 41%, making it the likeliest area where he could scrape together enough votes to overcome the 176-vote deficit.

The Washington County Clerk, however, disputes Jenkins’ contention, though, since 415 of the 659 votes with a late postmark were actually processed in Salt Lake City, not Las Vegas, undermining Jenkins’ argument.

“I’m trying to figure out, given that your argument is tied to the processing of these ballots through Las Vegas, if we were to give you relief wouldn’t it be limited only to ballots that came through Las Vegas?” Pohlman asked Ferate.

The attorney said he would like to see all of the votes counted, but the court could decide to only add those ballots that went through Las Vegas.

Last month, a federal judge denied a request by Jenkins’ campaign to have the late-postmarked ballots counted. And before that a state judge denied a request by the campaign to get a list of voters in Washington County whose ballots were disqualified. The campaign wanted an opportunity to contact the voters so they could “cure” the errors.

Of the more than 107,000 votes cast, Maloy led by 214 votes after the ballots were counted. After a recount, which concluded this week —and also uncovered a software glitch that led to some votes not being included in the final tally — the lead narrowed to 176, one of the slimmest margins in state history.

In 2016, Democratic legislative candidate Suzanne Harrison lost to state Rep. LaVar Christensen by just three votes out of about 15,000 total votes cast. Other legislative races since have been decided by a few dozen votes.

In 2018, Democrat Ben McAdams beat Republican Mia Love by 694 votes in a congressional race where nearly 270,000 ballots were counted.

After the arguments before the justices, Jenkins said that he wants to win the election but is fighting to make sure all the votes are counted.

Jenkins said that, in effect, a delay that leads to a late postmark is no different than a mail carrier who dumps a bin of ballots in the trash, which is something people wouldn’t stand for. In both cases, he said, the votes don’t get counted.

Jenkins said if the justices reject his challenge, he would respect the decision and it would be the end of his challenges to the result. He said he hopes, however, that the Legislature will fix the issues that have been raised, including looking at whether the state should get rid of mail-in voting.

In addition to Jenkins’ challenge, Republican gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman is seeking to overturn his loss to Gov. Spencer Cox, arguing that Cox, who gathered signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, should not have been allowed in the primary because Lyman beat him at the Republican state convention.

This story is breaking and may be updated.

Library associations, free speech groups and advocates are expressing outrage and concern after the state of Utah ordered 13 books to be removed from public school classrooms and libraries in accordance with a new state law that passed earlier this year.

“It’s a tragedy,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

“Many of those works are highly praised, some award-winning works of literature, others are books that many read for enjoyment, and none of them come anywhere near to meeting the definition of illegal materials and arguably they have a place on the shelf for voluntary reading for students for whom they’re developmentally appropriate.”

On 2 August, with just a few weeks before students in Utah return to school, state officials released a list of books to be removed from public school classrooms and libraries. The move comes on the heels of Utah’s Republican-controlled state legislature passing a law in February and the state’s governor signing it in March, which free speech organizations say make it the first state in the country to outlaw titles statewide.

The law, which formally took effect on 1 July, states that education agencies in Utah should prioritize “protecting children from the harmful effects of illicit pornography over other considerations”.

The books banned on Friday, which included Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur and Forever by Judy Blume, were banned because they were considered to contain “pornographic or indecent” material.

The banned materials must be “legally disposed of” and “may not be sold or distributed” per the guidelines. Utah’s public school districts are also required to remove books if a book was previously banned in either three districts, or two school districts and five charter schools. (For reference, Utah has 41 public school districts in total.)

Free speech and education advocates across the country and the state are concerned about the possible impact the law may have.

“It really is an effort to allow a minority to dictate the contents of library shelves, and conform what’s on library shelves to their own political, religious and moral values,” Caldwell-Stone said, adding that the Utah law differs from other similar measures across the county because it is the only one (so far) that mandates the removal of books from every public school in the state. Most other bans have been a local district issue.

Caldwell-Stone believes that the law will be used in an “expansive fashion”.

“It will create a chilling effect,” she said, before noting that a vocal minority will now be able to control the curriculum and access to books for every student in the state.

Their definition of “sensitive materials” can often encompass things like gender identity, sexual orientation, race and racism, which has been seen at the local level, Caldwell-Stone said.

She also noted that this could deny Utah students access to reading about these topics, the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, and to learn about the lives and experiences of others, among other things.

Kasey Meehan, the director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, which has been tracking book banning efforts across the country for years, said on Thursday that she was not surprised by the books on the list released in Utah on Friday, as they are books that have been targeted nationally for their content.

“Predominantly, they’re books that are written by females, predominantly they’re books that include depictions of sex as well as sexual assault and violence,” she said. “And we just see a really continued campaign to eradicate those books from public school libraries.”

Like Caldwell-Stone, Meehan is also concerned about the impact on the students in Utah.

“We’ve written about this and it’s been demonstrated, but having information about sex and sexual abuse does not encourage individuals to have more sex, but instead, actually is a valuable tool in preventing sexual assault and sexual violence,” she said. “To see those resources removed just opens up potential harms on students without access to that kind of information.”

The law also places the burden on school educators, administrators and librarians to remove books, taking their attention away from students and educating, she said.

Meehan has criticized the guidelines for disposing of the books, calling them “vague” and stating that the law will “undoubtedly result in dumpsters full of books that could otherwise be enjoyed by readers”.

Peter Bromberg, co-chair of the advocacy committee of the Utah Library Association, echoed Meehan’s concerns on how many of the banned books deal in some way or another with the themes of sexual assault, particularly as sexual assault affects thousands of Utah residents – including many young girls – a year, per government data.

“These books can help teens understand that they’re not alone,” he said. “It might give them the language and the ability to talk about what happened to a trusted adult.”

Bromberg is also concerned that this law is a criminal statute, calling it “very disturbing that this law now puts librarians and teachers and school board members in legal jeopardy just for having highly regarded and award winning works of literature on high school library shelves”.

Advocates expect that the number of books banned in Utah will only increase in the coming months. Many also believe that the Utah law will be challenged in the courts.

Across the country, other states are passing book ban legislation with similar language to Utah’s, including in South Carolina earlier this summer.

In 2023 alone, more books were banned in US schools and libraries than any other year for which records have been kept, the ALA reported.