COVID-19 lawsuits
Class-action and individual lawsuits over restrictions likely to rise./
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, New York has faced dozens of lawsuits challenging the sweeping authority state officials have invoked to respond to the public health crisis — and attorneys say that trend is expected to continue.
Many of the lawsuits take aim at the constitutionality of the directives and executive orders issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his administration throughout the pandemic.
While 25 of the 53 lawsuits have been resolved — most ending with a ruling in the state’s favor — the plaintiffs in some of the cases said they are moving forward with their lawsuits and expect even more legal challenges of state leaders’ actions.
Caroline J. Ryan, a partner at Goldberg Segalla, a Buffalobased law firm with offices in Albany, said she anticipates courts will get bogged down from class-action and individual lawsuits over the restrictions.
“I think you’re going to see a lot more of these lawsuits as we start to emerge from the pandemic and business owners really step back and see what’s left in terms of many businesses not being able to reopen,” she said. “This is all going to get untangled, and unfortunately, it ’s going to get untangled in the court system.”
Ryan said the outcome of a case depends on the facts, the judge, the state where the case originates and the respective state constitution governing executive power. Taking those factors into consideration, she said, there is anticipation that more decisions will come with rulings similar to one recently issued by a federal judge in Pittsburgh on Sept. 14.
U.S. District Judge William Stickman ruled that portions of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ’s executive orders in responding to the public health crisis violated the First and 14th Amendments.
It ’s these favorable outcomes that have given reassurance to some New Yorkers waging legal battles over the restrictions.
Buffalo attorney James Ostrowski, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit with several other Buffalo business owners and residents, said they intend to take their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The western New York residents argue Cuomo’s ability to “rule by decree” is trampling on the rights and freedoms enshrined in the state and federal constitutions, and the sweeping authority equates to the most “massive violation of civil liberty ” in American history.
The U.S. system of government “is based on pre-existing natural rights which the regime may never violate on pain of revolution and on popular sovereignty in which limited powers are delegated by the people to the government through constitutional means,” their lawsuit, filed May 15, argues. “To be blunt, a bloodless coup against the Constitution has been undertaken by the state itself.”
It ’s possible some of the cases could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has been a flashpoint in the presidential election following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this month. President Donald J. Trump on Saturday nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy as Democrats and some Republicans have called for the president and U.S. Senate to wait and allow the winner of the presidential election to make the nomination.
“We lost track of all the frivolous lawsuits filed against the state during this pandemic,” Cuomo’s senior advisor, Richard Azzopardi, said in response to questions about the lawsuits. “Wear a mask. Wash your hands.”
But as similar constitutional challenges make their way through courts in other states, attorneys are hopeful that the Supreme Court will weigh in.
“Although those decisions are not necessarily controlling in our particular jurisdiction, we ultimately believe this is an area of the law that is going to be further interpreted by the Supreme Court,” said Nick Demarco, an attorney for several wedding venues in western New York that sued the state over the restrictions. “The fact that different federal district courts have reached different conclusions in similar contexts only bolsters this need for further guidance from the Supreme Court.”
Demarco said they are still deciding whether to appeal a court ruling earlier this month that denied their request for a preliminary injunction.
New York has seen a variety of legal challenges since the beginning of the coronavirus restrictions — from the National Rif le Association suing over firearms stores being labeled nonessential businesses, to out-of-state attorneys challenging the constitutionality of New York ’s travel advisory requiring people from states with high coronavirus infection rates to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival here.
Whether those challenging Cuomo’s actions will be successful will ultimately be determined by the court it ’s tried in and the judge’s interpretation. But Neil Murray, a senior partner at O’connell and Aronowitz law firm in Albany, said it ’s important for people to understand that constitutional rights are not absolute.
“Some advocates like to couch them in terms of being absolute rights that can never be impinged upon. We know in reality that’s not actually the case,” Murray said, giving the example of it being illegal to falsely shout fire in a crowd. “Everyone’s individual freedom is limited by the impact it’s going to have upon somebody else.”