Lawyers give closing arguments in Crack’d Egg case
In their closing legal arguments, attorneys for a Brentwood restaurant on Friday compared the county health director to a tyrant for enforcing COVID-19 mitigation orders, while the county’s attorney criticized the “questionable experts” called to testify by the eatery.
It was the final day of testimony in the Allegheny County Health Department’s case against the Crack’d Egg, which was ordered to close down after the owners began to openly ignore guidelines for mask-wearing and social distancing. The restaurant has so far refused to close in the months since it was told to cease business.
In their closing arguments, attorneys for the Crack’d Egg said Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, did not have authority to issue COVID-19 restrictions and said the county failed to prove its case was valid.
Defense attorney Dennis Blackwell raised the question of why the department didn’t defend its authority for COVID-19 rules. “There can only be one answer,” he argued. “They didn’t do it properly.”
Meanwhile, the Health Department’s solicitor, Vijya Patel, said the case was about public health and a restaurant that ignores standards that most other facilities adhere to. She pointed out that the court has acknowledged that COVID-19 is a real danger; if not, the virtual hearing would have been happening in-person in a courtroom.
She also criticized the experts brought by the defense. Among the people called to the stand Friday was James Lyons-Weiler, a scientist who has propagated COVID-19 falsehoods on his blog.
Mr. Lyons-Weiler, who has studied zoology and biology, suggested in February 2020 on his blog that there was “moderately strong confirmation of a laboratory origin” of the virus that causes COVID-19, a claim that has not been proven by scientists and researchers.
Although he describes himself as “100% pro-vaccine,” he has also sent a number of anti-vaccine tweets to his more than 20,000 Twitter followers. One of his recent blog posts suggested there was a chance the COVID-19 vaccine could change human DNA, another assertation rejected by experts.
Attorneys for the Crack’d Egg asked Mr. Lyons-Weiler about the success rate of PCR tests — a polymerase chain reaction test, considered by experts to be the gold standard in COVID-19 testing.
He was brought in to contradict testimony by LuAnn Brink, the chief epidemiologist at the county Health Department, who on Wednesday defended the efficacy of
masks, social distancing requirements and how COVID-19 tests are used to track outbreaks.
Ms. Patel objected to allowing Mr. Lyons-Weiler’s testimony since he has been criticized by court officials for having an inadequate background in medicine and for using “selective reliance upon questionable source material.”
She frequently objected to statements made by Mr. Lyons-Weiler and the defense’s other witnesses, which included Kelly Miller, an occupational health and safety consultant, and David Magill, the owner of Mogie’s Irish Pub in Westmoreland County.
But Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge John T. McVay Jr. allowed most of the testimonies to go on, saying he was able to determine the weight of evidence for himself. “I think I can take a lot of judicial notice both ways,” he said.
“I also know that this is COVID,” he added at one point. “We are learning and studying as we go along.”
Questioned by defense attorneys, Mr. Lyons-Weiler said he believes the rate of false positives among COVID-19 tests is much higher than understood and said he disagrees with the consensus that more testing is better.
Many health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectiousdisease expert, have said the U.S. needs more testing, not less, to adequately slow the spread of the virus.
“It’s logical to think the more testing we have, the better,” Judge McVay said.
But Mr. Lyons-Weiler said he believed increased testing led to a high number of false positives, which would inflate the presence of the virus in a community: “The whole testing paradigm was based on the assumption that testing is always better, but it’s clearly not.”
For over an hour, the researcher went into the detailed specifics of his grievances with the use of PCR testing, prompting the court reporter to repeatedly ask him to slow down and causing a few objections from the plaintiffs.
“How is this testimony relevant to masking or restrictions on occupancy?” asked Ms. Patel.
She was overruled until Mr. Lyons-Weiler began speaking about the effects of lockdowns on teen suicide rates, at which point Judge McVay cut off his testimony.
Elsewhere in the hearing, Mr. Magill, the owner of Mogie’s Irish Pub in Lower Burrell, told the court that his profits have dropped as a result of the state’s mitigation efforts. “I think we’re being scapegoated,” he said.
He began talking about different articles he has read showing the effects of occupancy restrictions of the spread of COVID-19, causing Ms. Patel to object.
“I just want to say he’s been allowed to make a lot of hearsay statements,” she said.
Judge McVay overruled her. “Do I understand that he’s going off hearsay and some things that he read?” he said. “Yes, I understand.”
The judge asked Mr. Magill some questions about where he was getting his information, which included articles from the National Restaurant Association.
“I talk to many people,” Mr. Magill said, citing his personal conversations with other restaurant owners as additional parts of his research.
“Are you telling me that these anecdotal statements from people that you’ve spoken to is your research?” Ms. Patel asked.
When questioning Ms. Miller, a consultant who gives training on requirements from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Ms. Patel asked if she agrees with former Surgeon General Jerome Adams’ statement that people should wear masks to help stop the spread of the virus.
“I don’t agree with that statement,” Ms. Miller replied. “Not everyone can tolerate a face mask.” She repeatedly emphasized that surgical masks do not provide total protection against the spread of the virus.
Concluding the hearing, Judge McVay said he still has to look at briefs that will be submitted by the parties by the beginning of next week, in addition to the approximately 80 exhibits that were entered into evidence.