Tower Health — the parent company of Brandywine and Phoenixville hospitals and the soon-to-close Jennersville Hospital — is appealing the decision of a Chester County judge who rejected the nonprofit health system’s bid for property tax exemption, writes Lisa Scheid for the Daily Local News.

In October, Judge Jeffrey Sommer ruled that the three local hospitals are more aligned with for-profit companies.

In an opposite ruling that same month, a Montgomery County judge decided that Tower Health’s Pottstown Hospital can continue to be exempt from property taxes.

Tower has criticized the Chester County decision. Its attorneys — William D. Kennedy and Jared R. Johnson of Berwyn-based White and Williams — called it “a shot across the bow” of nonprofit hospitals throughout Pennsylvania.

“A recent trial court decision could have significant, long-term consequences for the financial models of Pennsylvania nonprofit health care providers,” wrote Kennedy and Johnson.

With the ruling, the judge ordered the three hospitals “to begin paying millions in annual local property taxes, which fund local school districts.”

Now, Tower Health is appealing the decision on what it contends are factual and procedural errors, as well as a flawed legal analysis.

Read more about the case in the Daily Local News.