A Delaware man and his wife have filed a federal lawsuit against a Pennsylvania hospital they say refused to admit him because he did not have health insurance, a charge the health care provider says is “groundless.”

Marcus Murray, 56, and his wife, Jean, of Felton, Del., filed the suit in the U.S. District Court of Philadelphia, alleging The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania turned Marcus away, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The suit says that after initially accepting the man’s transfer from Underwood Memorial Hospital in Gloucester County, Pa., for emergency surgery to treat a tear in a major artery, Penn later refused to accept him as he was uninsured.

Murray suffered brain damage and is blind as a result of the lack of timely care at Underwood and the delay in treatment by Penn’s reversal, the man’s attorney says.

The hospital told the Inquirer that the couple’s allegations are “groundless,” and that it has expedited admission criteria for life-and-death cases like Murray’s and accept patients without considering insurance coverage “based on the urgency of their condition.”

Y. Joseph Woo, a Penn cardiothoracic surgeon, is also named in the suit, as is Underwood and its emergency room director, Robert M. Sidwa. The suit alleges that Underwood failed to properly diagnose Murray’s condition and did not transfer him to a hospital capable of dealing with his condition in a timely manner, the report said.

Underwood did not offer a comment on the lawsuit to the Inquirer.

The case is in federal court as Murray’s attorney said in addition to medical negligence, the suit alleges violations by Penn of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.