NY Supreme Court nixes vaccine mandate, orders jobs returned with back-pay

New York Supreme Court.

There were only 16 people involved in the lawsuit in New York, but they won this round categorically and it may set a precedent that affects thousands. The 16 sanitation workers who were sacked because they chose not to be vaccinated must be reinstated, and the Judge wants lost wages to be paid too:

The Epoch Times: Judge Strikes Down NYC Vaccine Mandate

New York Supreme Court judge on Monday struck down New York City’s vaccine mandate, finding the rule to be unconstitutional, arbitrary, and capricious.

Attorney Chad LaVeglia, who announced the verdict outside the Richmond County courthouse, said the mandate was now “null and void.”

This is not over yet. The decision, applies just to these 16 workers and will be appealed:

The ruling strikes down the mandate that saw over 2,000 city workers fired for not getting a COVID-19 vaccine. LaVeglia said the ruling extends to all public workers, including the New York fire department, the police department, and the Department of Corrections. However, the city disagreed and filed an appeal, saying it is keeping the mandate in place.

Justice Ralph Porzio’s decision is here. Apparently the legal case partly hinged on the lack of scientific evidence for the mandate, but mostly on the arbitrary and capricious nature of the ruling. While police, firefighters and cleaners had to obey, some athletes and celebrities did not.  The mandate applied to public sector workers from one date but not to private sector workers until several months later. And the NY ruling class gave exceptions out “arbitrarily” (presumably to anyone famous enough to protest and make the City of New York look bad).

“This is clearly an arbitrary and capricious action because we are dealing with identical unvaccinated people being treated differently by the same administrative agency.”

Porzio said in his ruling that a new condition of employment cannot be imposed on employees when the condition did not exist when they accepted the contract. This seems cut and dried, but expect future employment contracts to add in this cause. Free citizens must be prepared to protest as soon as the employment contracts change and before anyone signs them.

“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid 19. As of the day of this decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. The Petitioners should not have been terminated for choosing not to protect themselves. We have learned through the course of the pandemic that the vaccine against Covid-19 is not absolute. Breakthrough cases occur, even for those who are been vaccinated and boosted.

The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health, it was about compliance. If it was about safety and public health, no one would be exempt. It is time for the City of New York to do what is right and what is just.”

Porzio declared the Commissioner of Heath and Mental Hygiene lacks the power to permanently exclude the workers from their workplace, and that it violates the separation of power doctrine, and the equal rights protection of the NY  Constitution.

How much these legal arguments apply in other jurisdictions is not clear, but hopefully this will spark a great many cases. Sadly the battle against these tyrannical mandates is far from over. I can see the appeal arguing that evidence showing how ineffective the vaccines are in October 2022 is not relevant to decisions made in 2021 with different variants and different data available at the time, but the point that the state granted exemptions unscientifically, and arbitrarily would still stand.

One day I hope there is a decision that the vaccines had significant and unknowable risks and that when there is risk, people should always have a choice.

h/t to B.nice and William Astley

Photo: New York Supreme Court, and New York County Clerk’s office, Manhattan. By Bjoertvedt

REFERENCE

Garvey, George et al. vs. City of New York et al., case number 85163/2022, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Richmond.

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35 comments to NY Supreme Court nixes vaccine mandate, orders jobs returned with back-pay

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    Hanrahan

    Is this the first stone of an avalanche?

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    Who cares about the level of (in)effectiveness? It’s noteworthy, but irrelevant. A bike helmet is effective but you can’t make it a part of an employment contract to wear one while driving your car to work. Will the State also mandate PrEP for HIV+ employees? Didn’t think so!

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    John Connor II

    As we know, the NY justice system is part of Wall Street and completely corrupt so this is pretty unexpected.
    It remains to be seen if the demonrats have this decision overturned.
    Then again, given the crime and chaos, maybe NY just needs their workers & cops back but don’t want to apologise and beg, so..

    The fight back against the WEF agenda is increasing globally as we’re seeing, which is why we’re simultaneously seeing an accelerating concerted effort by the WEF to consolidate their plans.
    The Trans backlash is now considerable and that’s probably the most important thing for it’s the next generation that is the future.
    A dedicated post on that coming next o/t.

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    “One day I hope there is a decision that the vaccines had significant and unknowable risks and that when there is risk, people should always have a choice.”

    Exactly. Nobody and I mean nobody ever explained the risks of being jabbed with these ‘doses”. They only emphasised the ‘benefits’ which are now being shown to be lies upon lies. Informed consent should always be paramount. My body, my choice. So glad that I never got jabbed.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      My body, my choice.

      That motto seems to be very selectively applied and only to Leftist causes like abortion or transgenderism.

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      Robert Swan

      Johnny Rotten,

      Informed consent should always be paramount.

      What has been done in the name of COVID-19 is outrageous, but it’s not hard to think of situations where one person’s “human rights” are in conflict with another’s; in particular: quarantine (as distinct from ridiculous lockdowns). People suspected of carrying serious infectious diseases need to be kept away from others, and public health officials need the power to make this happen.

      The problem is not that public health officials have draconian powers, it’s that the officials are corrupt, debauched, and flippant about how they exert them. The powers should remain, but there need to be serious consequences for their misuse. Stringing up by toenails, say, that sort of thing.

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      • #
        David Maddison

        There were always powers for quarantine for persons with genuinely serious communicable diseases. No new laws were required for COVID.

        And drugs such as HCQ and IVM taken according to appropriate protocols would have enormously reduced or helped eliminate the pandemic and most deaths, as would simple measures like correcting Vitamin D deficiency in nursing homes and elsewhere.

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          Robert Swan

          All true, but how was any of that a response to what I said?

          I was disagreeing with the claim that informed consent was *paramount*. It is rightly trumped by public health interests.

          Unfortunately, for about 40 years, public health here has stopped attending to its important duties and been carried away with daft things like sugary drinks, passive smoking and number of deaths attributable to coal fired power. That’s why they didn’t have a clue what to do when COVID-19 turned up. They went the cargo-cult path with Claytons quarantine lockdowns, random shutdowns of some businesses, and all that tracking and tracing with no idea what to do with the information. We are very very lucky that COVID-19 wasn’t a bad disease.

          So you’re right that they always had powers of quarantine. The problem is: is there anybody in the country we could trust to exercise those powers?

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    David Maddison

    What do you think is a comparable medical disaster to the covid vaccine case?

    I don’t think there are many direct comparisons but there are elements of Thalidomide.

    I think there is no comparison to government mandates however. And probably the worst country for extreme mandates and loss of jobs and liberty was Australia, where the governments are among the most fanatical followers of UN / WHO.

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      Lion heart

      Daniel Andrews is leading in polls for Victorian premier
      Totally incompetent he made the most lockdowns in the world.
      Had people shot with rubber bullets for protesting at the shrine.
      He has destroyed coal power and made gas expensive.
      Sadly the opposition can not understand the lack of data to support AGW zealots religion.
      How many of James Hansen’s and others predictions came to pass?
      1988 they told the US congress what would happen by 1999.
      All wrong. That was in 11 years. It is now 33 years.
      Intelligent people find those opinions to be absurd.

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    Timo Soren

    Minnesota fired nurses at Mayo even when they had bad reactions to earlier Covid shots. They need to be hit next.

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  • #
    wokebuster

    It was known in 2021 via the Pfizer trial documents.

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    David Maddison

    IMAGINE

    -Imagine being given any other drug without the risks being properly explained or explained at all.

    -Imagine being given a drug without being told it was not properly tested and was experimental.

    -Imagine not being allowed to use alternatives to the vaccine such as known safe antivirals like HCQ and IVM taken according to appropriate protocols which could be used for prophylaxis or treatment.

    All of the above would be considered medical malpractice if not crimes.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    From J.B.Shurk at American Thinker:

    “At some point, Westerners might have to wake up to the uncomfortable reality that their leaders not only do not have their best interests at heart, but also do not care in the slightest what the people’s interests actually are. Power and control are their game. Wealth and finding ways to maintain that wealth at the people’s expense are their drug of choice. People…well, they are nothing more than pawns to be sacrificed at will. After all, there are entirely too many of those for the World Economic Forum’s global oligarchy to tolerate on Planet Earth much longer. They will submit, remain quiet, or go.”

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    David Maddison

    Another thing to consider is that generally those that resigned or were sacked (fired) for their refusal to take the experimental substance were overwhelmingingly strong, well-informed, principled, independent thinkers.

    The loss of such people from the workforce is always a problem, particularly in organisations like police forces or militaries. Those left will be far more likely to “just follow orders”.

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      Hanrahan

      Another thing to consider is that generally those that resigned or were sacked (fired) for their refusal to take the experimental substance were overwhelmingingly strong, well-informed, principled, independent thinkers.

      For this reason we refuseniks are not even a scientifically useful control group.

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    Dave in the States

    I got phone call today from the GP’s office reminding me that according to their records I need to be vaxxed. I asked them if my record records that I tested positive (asymptomatic), so I don’t need to get jabbed.

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4979775/senator-paul-asserts-natural-immunity-good-covid-19-vaccine

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      David Maddison

      You either have natural immunity as you do, or you could say, “that’s great, I didn’t realise there was a vaccine for covid” and you would be right.

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    David Maddison

    “The substance” not only destroyed lives through injury and death, it also destroyed lives through loss of jobs and businesses.

    In the more extreme Nanny States such as Australia, mandates STILL exist such as in certain healthcare settings in different states.

    Vaccinated healthcare workers might have or convey the false impression that they won’t infect vulnerable people, but that is obviously not true.

    There is a false sense of security which means people might be lax with appropriate infection control precautions.

    E.g. https://www.health.vic.gov.au/immunisation/vaccination-for-healthcare-workers

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      Philip

      Excellent statement. I agree. They’re obviously studious and can learn material provided, but good thinkers? I’m sure some are. Some obviously are.

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    Take note those authoritorian zealots like the Queensland Department of Education who, desperate for teachers, offered sacked unvaxxed teachers their job back as long as they took a pay cut as punishment for valiantly standing up to medical tyrany.

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    Daffy

    Just wondering how many of the sanitation workers are female, and if so, do they make up about half the workforce? Do girls get equal opportunity training at school by helping the boys pick up rubbish? I wonder about such things.

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