Attorneys representing clients who were fired due to the Big Apple’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate say a failure to rehire those employees with back pay is a violation of the
New York City
Human Rights
Law
.
Mayor
Eric Adams
announced the city will drop its mandatory vaccine requirement for city workers on Friday but did not provide details about the nearly 2,000 workers fired for refusing to comply with the mandate, prompting attorneys representing such workers to vow legal retaliation. A spokesman for the mayor said Monday the city would not provide back pay for fired employees but did not offer any further details.
“I want to say that New York City and Eric Adams … have seriously violated New York City Human Rights Law,” James Mermigis, who’s been described as an
“anti-shutdown
” lawyer for representing plaintiffs in challenges against pandemic-related measures, told the Washington Examiner.
NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS DROP COVID-19 VACCINE REQUIREMENT FOR CITY WORKERS
The city’s law, known as Title 8 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York, “prohibits discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on actual or perceived religion or creed.”
Mermigis said he’s filed over 140 individual lawsuits, with a large bulk being New York City Police Department officers who were terminated for refusing to take the previously required doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, some of whom rejected on religious grounds. Some former employees are seeking $250 million in punitive damages from the city.
With plans to lift the vaccine mandate Friday, about 1,780 ex-city employees across various sectors, including education, health, and other public agencies, remain waiting to hear whether they will be allowed to return to their previous occupations with at least some back pay.
Adams said Monday that “more than 96% of city workers and more than 80% of New Yorkers” received their primary COVID-19 vaccination and urged more citizens to get vaccinated and boosted as officials prepare to move forward without a mandate.
But lawyers such as Mermigis say lifting the requirements and fulfilling the demands for back pay and reinstatement aren’t enough, noting, “We want these judges to issue declarations that what the city did was arbitrary and capricious, denied their reasonable accommodations, and we want a declaration that each of my clients is entitled to a religious support medical exemption.”
Some plaintiffs are also being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based litigation firm that believes local courts must rule on the constitutionality of the vaccine mandate because the city “could simply reimpose the mandate at any time,” ADF attorney John Bursch
said
.
Last year, on Oct. 24, Judge Ralph Porzio of the Richmond County Supreme Court
issued an order
requiring a group of fired sanitation workers to be reinstated by the following day and to collect back pay from their date of termination.
The state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued an order on Oct. 20, 2021, requiring all New York City employees to show proof of at least one vaccine dose and later issued a private-sector mandate in December that year.
But the city’s rules began to change on March 24, 2022, when Adams issued an executive order providing exemptions for private sector employees such as performers, artists, and athletes. The private sector mandate was eventually lifted on Nov. 1, 2022.
Tom Spiggle, a former federal prosecutor and founder of Spiggle Law Firm,
previously wrote
for Forbes about how the growing number of vaccine-related accommodations “makes it easier for employees to challenge the vaccination requirement in court on due process and equal protection grounds,” adding the sheer number of exemptions “undermines the argument that a vaccine requirement exists to protect public health.”
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Mermigis said he believes his clients have a “very strong case” against the city to reinstate every employee who lost their job under the New York City Human Rights Law.
The Washington Examiner contacted New York City Hall for a response.
