Landlords at a property in Bristol, Virginia, are suing to terminate the lease of their new tenant after they discovered that they unwittingly rented their building to Bristol Women’s Health, an abortion business.
Cardinal News reports that brothers Chase King and Chadwick King rented their commercial property building to Bristol Women’s Health Center last summer. At the time, a letter of intent from the facility’s real estate broker specified that his client was a “medical clinic.” The brothers allege that the broker “represented that the type of medical practice of her clients was a general family practice.”
The Kings recognized that Bristol Women’s Health was an abortion facility only after the lease was signed. They now say “they felt they had been misled and would never have leased the property to the Defendants” had they known, as they are “morally opposed” to abortion.
Their suit notes that their company, Kilo Delta LLC, “has suffered great financial loss and lost business opportunity; been forced to suffer in its reputation and endure humiliation within their business and social circles; [and] been required to endure great mental anguish.”
The broker attempted to amend the agreement to specify that abortions could only take place up to 10 weeks, but the Kings refused.
The lease agreement was signed by Bristol Women’s Health’s owner, Diane Derzis, and abortionist Wesley Adams. Derzis has owned a number of abortion facilities throughout the country, including Jackson Women’s Health in Jackson, Mississippi, the notorious facility behind the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case. She says that the brothers’ claims that she intended to deceive them is “not at all” true, adding that it is their own fault that they didn’t do due diligence.
Bristol, Virginia, sits right across the state border from Bristol, Tennessee, where Bristol Women’s Health had previously been operating. Its move one mile from its old location across state lines has garnered international attention due to the unique example of how the overturn of Roe is impacting abortion in a city with the same name that spans two states. The city of Bristol, VA, has also taken the first steps to ensure that no further abortion facilities can open in the city, though it will not impact the presence of the facility currently there.
