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Parents say a top hospital kept their newborn from them with no court order and no police.

Lawsuit: Top New Jersey Hospital Kept Newborn From Her Parents With No Court Order

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 27, 2026 · 4 min read
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A New Jersey couple is suing Morristown Medical Center, one of the most highly ranked hospitals in the state, claiming it kept their newborn daughter away from them with no legal authority to do so. According to their lawsuit, there was “No court order, child welfare directive, or law enforcement involvement” behind the separation, just a hospital decision that the parents say deprived them of bonding with their newborn.

The parents, Chico Range and Jessica Gonzalez, are suing the hospital and its parent company, Atlantic Health System. The case was first reported by Patch in July 2026 and has drawn renewed attention since. The allegations below are claims in a civil complaint and have not been proven in court.

“Discharged together,” then not

According to the complaint, as reported by Patch, Gonzalez was admitted to Morristown Medical Center in labor on June 5, 2025. Doctors had told her she was 35 weeks pregnant, but her medical records showed the baby was full term.

After the birth, the parents say, they were told the family would be discharged together. Then the plan changed. Gonzalez was told she would be sent home while the baby, identified in the suit only by her initials, J.R., would stay in the hospital’s care.

The suit is blunt about what was missing: “No court order, child welfare directive, or law enforcement involvement justified such separation.”

Security walks the father out

What happened next is the part of the story that should bother any parent. According to the complaint, Range tried to take his other children, who were also at the hospital, out of the building. Nursing staff described his behavior as “threatening” and accused him of trying to take J.R. as well.

Hospital security guards removed Range and barred him from coming back to the hospital or seeing his newborn daughter, the suit says.

Gonzalez, still recovering from childbirth, was allowed to see her baby only during daytime hours. The complaint says those limits were imposed even though no safety risk had been identified. According to Patch’s account of the filing, nursing staff attributed the limits to feeling “threatened,” not to any court order or law enforcement decision.

An “internal administrative determination”

The parents took their complaint to the hospital’s Director of Patient Relations. According to the suit, the director blamed the restrictions on “miscommunications,” acknowledged the family’s “stressful experience,” and confirmed the restrictions were an “internal administrative determination.”

That phrase is the heart of the case. New Jersey law does give hospitals a narrow emergency power over children in their care. Under N.J.S.A. 9:6-8.29, a treating physician or hospital may keep a child in custody without a court order or parental consent, but only when the child faces imminent danger to life, safety or health and there is not enough time to go to court. Even then, the statute requires the person holding the child to “inform the division immediately,” meaning the state’s child protection agency, to bring the child to a place that agency designates, and to make every reasonable effort to tell the parents where the child has been taken.

In other words, the law contemplates a child welfare emergency with the state brought in right away. What the parents describe is something else entirely: no court, no caseworker, no police, and a hospital administrator calling the whole thing an internal decision after the fact.

What the family wants

Range and Gonzalez say the separation robbed them of the chance to bond with their newborn and caused emotional distress, anxiety, humiliation and lasting psychological harm. Their claims against Morristown Medical Center and Atlantic Health System include negligence, interference with parental rights and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, court costs and restitution.

Patch reported that it contacted Atlantic Health System about the suit and that representatives were not immediately available for comment. The hospital’s side of the story has not been publicly laid out, and it is possible it will offer a fuller explanation in court. But the only explanation on the record so far, according to the suit, came from its own patient relations office: “miscommunications” and an administrative call.

A top-ranked hospital under scrutiny

Morristown Medical Center is no small-town clinic. U.S. News & World Report ranked it No. 2 in New Jersey in its 2026-2027 Best Hospitals rankings, released in August 2026, according to Atlantic Health System, which runs it along with several other hospitals in the state. It held the same spot the year before. Patch described it as widely regarded as one of the best hospitals in New Jersey and on the East Coast.

It is also not the only lawsuit the hospital is facing. In June 2026, Patch reported a separate suit by the parents of a girl who allege that staff at Morristown Medical Center and its Goryeb Children’s Hospital delayed diagnosing her appendicitis, leading to a ruptured appendix, multiple surgeries and permanent damage.

Parents are not guests at their own child’s birth. They are the people with the legal right, and the moral duty, to make decisions for that child unless a court or the state’s child protection system steps in with a real reason. A hospital can feel uncomfortable with a family. It can call security on someone who is genuinely dangerous. What it cannot do, if these allegations hold up, is quietly decide on its own that a mother gets visiting hours and a father gets the door.

A hospital doesn’t get to play judge, jury and caseworker with somebody else’s newborn, and Morristown Medical Center will now have to explain its “administrative determination” to a court.

Editor’s note: This article covers a lawsuit first reported in July 2026 over events in June 2025 that drew renewed attention in September 2026.

Sources

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