NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — New York City won’t scrap its COVID-19 jab mandate for public workers despite a state Supreme Court judge’s Monday ruling declaring the requirement “unconstitutional.” The city has filed an appeal challenging the decision, arguing the mandate that saw roughly 2,000 employees fired for vaccine refusal is “firmly grounded in law.”
New York state Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio had handed down a 13-page decision on Monday declaring that New York’s health commissioner had “exceeded his authority” by imposing the October 2021 mandate and that “[i]t is time for the City of New York to do what is right and what is just” by rolling back the requirement.
The judge consequently ordered that the 16 unvaccinated Department of Sanitation employees who filed the petition last summer be reinstated in their full capacities by 6 a.m. Tuesday, October 25, and be entitled to back pay beginning from the date of their termination.
Attorney for the fired workers Chad LaVeglia said the ruling applied to all city workers fired over vaccine refusal, and that they must therefore be reinstated and awarded back pay.
However, New York City disagreed, opting to file an appeal challenging the decision.
“The city strongly disagrees with this ruling,” a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department said.#NewYorkCity is keeping its public workers COVID-19 #VaccineMandate in place, even after a judge ruled it unconstitutional. https://t.co/OvWjJ7iEsN
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) October 26, 2022
A spokesperson for New York City’s Law Department told The Epoch Times in an email that “[t]he city strongly disagrees with this ruling as the mandate is firmly grounded in law and is critical to New Yorkers’ public health. We have already filed an appeal.”
The spokesperson added that the mandate requiring all city employees to get the jab or lose their jobs “remains in place as this ruling pertains solely to the individual petitioners in this case.”
According to LaVeglia, however, “[e]very city employee who has been terminated because of the mandate could bring civil actions against the city.”
RELATED: Judge voids NYC COVID jab mandate, orders reinstatement, back pay for fired unvaxxed workers
In an email to The Epoch Times, LaVeglia argued that New York City “acknowledges that the court declared the mandate unconstitutional but is opting to keep it in place anyway.”
“Once the court declared it unconstitutional, the City should’ve ended it without further court intervention,” he explained, adding that “[t]he City is breaking the law by continued enforcement. And it does so at its own peril.”
Former New York City Fire Department (FDNY) battalion chief Tom Lapolla told LifeSiteNews in a phone interview Wednesday that the judge’s Monday ruling was “precedent setting,” and blasted the city’s appeal as “spiteful and petty.”
The 38-year FDNY veteran, who told LifeSite he was forced to retire after the city imposed its “tyrannical” vaccine mandate, added that despite the judge’s ruling ordering the reinstatement of the 16 sanitation workers, the city’s appeal means “no one’s going back to work.”
The City’s decision to appeal comes after Judge Porzio wrote in expansive terms condemning the jab mandate for public workers, which he ruled was “arbitrary and capricious.”
In the decision, Porzio highlighted Democrat Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order earlier this year permitting unvaccinated celebrities and athletes to work in the city while unvaccinated firefighters, police officers, and other public servants lost their jobs.
According to the judge, “There is nothing in the record to support the rationality of keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions, like athletes, artists, and performers.”
“This is clearly an arbitrary and capricious action because we are dealing with identical unvaccinated people being treated differently by the same administrative agency,” he wrote.
RELATED: NYC’s jab exemption for athletes only intensifies the sheer absurdity of the mandate
Porzio also highlighted updated CDC guidance in observing that “[b]eing vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19,” and remarked that U.S. President Joe Biden recently stated that the pandemic is over, and New York allowed its state of emergency to expire more than a month earlier.
“The vaccine mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance,” the judge said.
City lawyers filed their notice of appeal Tuesday with the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, arguing that Porzio had erred in his ruling and that the jab mandate has been upheld as “entirely lawful and rational” by “multiple courts,” The Epoch Times reported.
Despite the city’s decision to fight the judge’s ruling, Lapolla expressed optimism that “the momentum is definitely on the side of the anti-mandate movement” but cautioned that “we have to keep moving.”
“We need to keep this story on the frontlines,” he said.