The New York State Supreme Court struck down New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public workers, reinstated all employees fired for not vaccinating, and ordered backpay. This comes after Mayor Eric Adams fired over 1,400 city employees for refusing to get immunized with the coronavirus vaccine.

🚨DEVELOPING: "The New York state Supreme Court reinstated all state employees fired for being unvaccinated during the pandemic Monday, saying the government violated their rights." https://t.co/6S6T1aLROL

— Assemblyman Doug Smith (@DougSmithNY) October 25, 2022

During October of last year, Mayor Bill DeBlasio mandated the vaccine and it applied to city and private sector employees. Adams amended DeBlasio’s order to issue some exemptions, including among private employers and that is what the fired city employees used to justify their suit claiming the requirement was arbitrary and capricious or unconstitutional. Thankfully, the State Supreme Court agreed and Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio said:

The Court finds that in light of the foregoing, the vaccination mandates for public employees and private employees is arbitrary and capricious. There was nothing demonstrated in the record as to why there was a vaccination mandae issued for only public employees in October 2021. The Court notes that Covid-19 rates were averaging under 1,500 per day in Pctober 2021, significantly lower than today’s average Covid-19 rates. There was nothing demonstrated in the record as to why the private sector mandate was issued months later in December 2021. There was nothing demonstrated in the record as to why exemptions were issued for certain professions in March 2022 under Executive Order No. 62. There was nothing demonstrated in the record as to why employees were kept at full duty during the months-long pendency of their exemption appeals. There was nothing demonstrated in the record as to why a titer was not an acceptable alternative to vaccination, other than a single CDC study entitled “New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection Than Previous Covid-19 Infection” which was issued on August 6, 2021.

No doubt the justices, like Porzio, saw what was going on since city leaders knew there was no way to justify forcing city employees getting immunized. The exemptions Adams dished out were for the mayor’s financial gain.

PHOTO CREDIT: New York Court of Appeals circa 2009 – By Tracy Collins, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27288655