Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was flatly rejected by a New York state judge Friday in his first-of-a-kind effort to override another state's healthcare shield laws, The New York Times reported.

Paxton had sought "to compel a New York court to enforce an order by a Texas judge in a case filed last year against a New York doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a patient in Texas," the Times reported. "The order levied a $113,000 penalty on the physician, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, and barred her from continuing to send abortion medication to Texas."

Paxton was rebuffed earlier this year by Taylor Bruck, the acting county clerk of Ulster County, New York, who refused to accept Paxton’s legal filing, citing the shield law.

"It's designed to protect health care providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans," the Times reported.

Ulster County Judge David Gandin dismissed Paxton's lawsuit. He wrote that because “the medical services Dr. Carpenter rendered are legal in New York State,” her conduct “falls squarely within the definition of ‘legally protected health activity’” under the shield law. “In fact, her activities were the precise type of conduct” the shield law “was designed to protect."

The Times noted that some 20 states have adopted some form of shield laws under which "authorities are prevented from obeying subpoenas, extradition requests and other legal actions that other states take against abortion providers. The laws are a stark departure from typical interstate practices of cooperating in legal matters."

"New York and seven other states have particularly comprehensive shield laws, which explicitly protect providers who prescribe abortion pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans."

The case raises constitutional issues that experts believe will be addressed in future appeals, the report stated.