A U.S. district court judge in Newark—upholding a deal to sell East Orange General Hospital out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy free and clear, without any successor liability—has ruled that a former employee’s suit against the buyer was rightly dismissed.

At issue was a former hospital employee’s age discrimination suit against the hospital’s new owner, lodged only after the hospital was in bankruptcy. The worker claimed the bankruptcy judge’s order directing her to dismiss her state court claim was outside his jurisdiction, but U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty of the District of New Jersey affirmed the bankruptcy judge’s ruling enforcing the sale.