New York Supreme Court rules NYC must reinstate workers fired for noncompliance with COVID-19 vaccine mandate

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The New York Supreme Court has ruled that NYC municipal workers who were fired for refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19 during the pandemic must be immediately reinstated, and with back pay, the New York Post reports. Tuesday’s ruling followed a lawsuit filed earlier this year by 16 former Sanitation Department workers who were fired in February, and only applies to them.

Over 1,750 New York City municipal employees, including from the lost their jobs for non-compliance with a vaccine mandate that NY Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio ruled Tuesday was enacted illegally, the Post said.

“It is time for the City of New York to do what is right and what is just,” Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio wrote in his decision. “The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance.”

Judge Porzio noted that, through its vaccine mandate, the city violated its employees’ “substantive and procedural due process rights” and that the state did not have “the power and authority to permanently exclude [the employees] from their workplace.” Porzio added that his ruling was not intended to be a commentary on the effectiveness of the vaccine, but rather about how the city treats its first responders.

“They worked without protective gear. They were infected with Covid-19, creating natural immunity,” he wrote.

An NYC Law Department spokesperson said in a statement that the city is appealing against the ruling. “We have already filed an appeal,” the statement reads. “In the meantime, the mandate remains in place as this ruling pertains solely to the individual petitioners in this case. We continue to review the court’s decision, which conflicts with numerous other rulings already upholding the mandate.”

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