New York Court: Unvaccinated City Workers Must Be Reinstated With Back Pay

By Matis Glenn

A New York judge ruled Tuesday that all city workers who were fired due to non-compliance with vaccine mandates must be reinstated with back pay. Sixteen city workers who were fired because they refused to get vaccinated filed a lawsuit against New York City and the Health Department, in a city action that Judge Ralph Porzio ruled was in violation of the State constitution.

Around 1,400 employees, including health care workers, police officers, sanitation workers, and firemen were terminated under the policy, enacted by former Mayor Bill de Blasio and then-Health Comissioner David Choksh. Mayor Eric Adams has said that he plans on maintaining the enactment.

Judge Porzio wrote that the employment-related mandates were “arbitrary and capricious,” and violated the constitutional right of every individual to be treated equally under the law, as the mandates weren’t enforced in the private sector, and they only pertained to employed people, not all citizens.

The decision comes on the heels of last month’s ruling by New York State Judge Arlene Bluth, who ruled in favor of Officer Alexander Deletto, a police officer who was terminated when his request for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate was denied by the city. Judge Bluth referred to the refusal as “arbitrary and capricious,” but denied Deletto’s lawsuit which sought to undo the city’s vaccine mandates altogether.

A footnote in Tuesday’s ruling states that Judge Porzio is unsure if any private sector employees were ever fired, and that the ruling only applies to city workers.

He dismissed the argument made by the city that the mandates were necessary for public health, pointing to declining Covid cases in October 2021; the month that the vaccine ultimatum was given to city workers. He also said that if the mandates were truly meant to protect public health, every citizen would have been required to receive the vaccine, regardless of employment status.

Judge Porzio also cited data from the CDC that at present, there isn’t any significant difference in transmission rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, and that President Biden and New York officials have stated that the pandemic is effectively over.

While acknowledging that the Health Department has the right to issue public health mandates, Judge Porzio ruled that the department cannot create new requirements for employment.

Judge Porzio was sympathetic to the grievances many fired city workers expressed, who say people once championed as heroes on the front-lines were summarily discarded when they did not want to comply with Health Department mandates.

“In a city with over 80 percent vaccination rate, we should not be penalizing the people who showed up to work, at great risk to themselves and their families, while we were locked down.”

City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov(R), longtime opponent of vaccine mandates, celebrated the news.

“Judge Porzio’s ruling that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” is exactly the sort of check and balance that a workable Constitutional Government requires when the other branches fail or refuse to act,” Vernikov told Hamodia. “This decision is a first step toward restoring the proper balance in the city between public health and the rights of citizens.”

mglenn@hamodia.com