FAIRMONT — A Marion County judge has denied the injunction that would have stopped Friday’s sale of the John Manchin Sr. Health Center in Fairmont.

Judge Matt Delligatti made his ruling at the close of a nearly three-hour hearing Tuesday that included testimony from Cathie DeVito Matheny, who spoke on her behalf of her mother, who has been a patient there for the past seven years.

At 97 and in the throes of dementia, Mrs. DeVito requires round-the-clock care.

DeVito doesn’t always know where she is in the course of a given day, but her daughter knows.

“She’s exactly 2.6 miles from my house,” she said. “I can visit her every day. And I can’t say enough about the care she gets from the staff. They all know her by name. And she hasn’t had one bedsore in seven years.”

Fairmont attorney and state delegate Joey Garcia filed a lawsuit on behalf of the resident, naming Gov. Patrick Morrisey and Michael Caruso, secretary of the Department of Health Facilities, as defendants.

Neither the governor nor the secretary, Garcia argued, had true legislative authority to launch the sale of Manchin center and four other state-run facilities – including Hopemont Hospital in Terra Alta, Jackie Withrow Hospital in Beckley and Lakin Hospital in West Columbia.

Morrisey announced the $60 million package deal in August, saying the facilities were outmoded and it would cost the state some $100 million or better, to bring much-needed repairs and renovations to the four buildings.

While Marx Development Group, the New York City real estate firm that made the buy, has pledged to build additional facilities – there’s no guarantee they would be built in Fairmont or any of the other locales.

Charleston attorney Zak Ritchie, though, countered that care would suffer, were the deal to suddenly be placed in legal limbo.

With the changeover already in the works, he said, vendors already notified would have to be informed by certified mail – a legislative requirement – that the sale was on hold.

That could likely mean disruptions in food and pharmacy services, he said.

Aaron Snodgrass, the chief financial officer of the state Department of Health, said the same in his testimony.

“We couldn’t do this in three days,” he said. “It would be a nightmare.”

Quality of care among all the residents there would suffer, he said, while the matter was debated in court and operations languished.

Speaking earlier in Charleston, Morrisey said patient care was the linchpin for him all along.

“Government should never have been in the business of doing this in the first place, and we took incredible steps to assure higher quality,” he said. “You’re going to have new buildings that are done. So, we took advantage of the opportunity to help deliver better care for people. This is a better deal for all the people that are getting care of those facilities. I’m excited about that.”

DeVito Matheny, meanwhile, said if she had known earlier of the potential ramifications to residents, staffers and vendors at the Fairmont facility, her motivation may have changed.

“I may have not even been here today,” she said

Delligatti, meanwhile, said he understood the particulars of the lawsuit – but that the particulars of authority, in this instant, overextended the bench.

“That’s not for this court to decide,” he said.