CONCORD — The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against an effort by New London Hospital to claim a charitable tax exemption for its Newport Health Center in 2016, a victory for Newport, N.H., in an ongoing debate over how it taxes the property.

The two-story, 28,800-square-foot health center on John Stark Highway in Newport opened in 2016 after a $9 million construction project and is assessed at $6.9 million.

New London Hospital paid $229,476 in taxes on the property in tax year 2020, making it Newport’s third-largest taxpayer, according to Newport Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg.

New London Hospital, which is part of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health system, has sought a charitable tax exemption for the health center but was denied by Newport in 2016 because it did not file the required form by April 15 of that year.

The Supreme Court ruling upheld a Superior Court judge who said New London Hospital’s untimely filing could only be reversed if it had proved that it missed the deadline because of “accident, mistake, or misfortune,” per state law.

Tuesday’s ruling also upheld the lower-court ruling that said the hospital could not amend its initial complaint after learning during discovery that Newport had a policy of notifying some entities of the deadline to file the form seeking the charitable exemption, saying that amounted to a “new cause of action” and would have “called for substantially different evidence.”

Newport’s Selectboard has taken the position that the amount of charity care provided at the health center is “very small” and that New London Hospital effectively runs a “fee for service operation” there.

“We are pleased that 2016 has now been resolved with some finality. The court’s ruling, we believe, lends some additional clarity to the whole process of tax exemption which I think will be beneficial for both taxpayers and municipalities,” Rieseberg, the town manager, said.

He declined to comment on the debate about charity care provided at the health center because it is part of pending litigation between Newport and New London Hospital.

Hospital spokesman Tim Lund also noted that the broader taxation debate remains unsettled.

The nonprofit hospital has argued that it is a ‘charitable entity” and has appealed the denial by Newport of the tax exemption in successive years since 2016.

“Today’s opinion represents only a narrow decision within a larger case about New London Hospital’s entitlement to a charitable property tax exemption under state statute. This opinion today resolves a limited procedural issue relating to the 2016 tax year and we look forward to a decision on the substantive merits of our claims,” Lund said via email.

“Given the ongoing legal matters we won’t be able to comment further.”

John P. Gregg can be reached at 603-727-3217 or jgregg@vnews.com.