UPDATED: Federal Appeals Court Rejects Most Workers' Claims in New Yorkers for Religious Liberty v. NYC

In this update on the recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals NYFRL decision: Plaintiffs-appellants indicate they will ask the appeals court to rehear the case, and attorney Sujata Gibson comments.

November 25 UPDATE: Attorneys for the NYFRL plaintiffs-appellants have filed for an extension of time to file a petition for rehearing en banc, indicating that they’re planning to ask the court to rehear the consolidated appeal.

Proceedings in the lower courts have also resumed in two of the lawsuits that were included in the consolidated appeal, New Yorkers for Religious Liberty et al. v. The City of New York et al, and Kane et al. v. de Blasio et al.

Attorney Sujata Gibson has also commented on the NYFRL appellate decision:

“The big win here is that the Court affirmed there can be a First Amendment claim for employees impacted by the Citywide Panel. Many others have had these claims dismissed in the two years this case was pending, so those dismissals can now be revisited. But the decision overall is very frustrating. The Court offers no reasoning whatsoever why the plaintiffs whose claims were denied are not entitled to the same relief as those who were granted. For example, the Court held that Heather Clark stated First Amendment claims because the Citywide Panel asserted that her reliance on guidance from the Holy Spirit was personal rather than religious. Such a distinction is clearly unlawful. But the confusing thing is that the Citywide Panel provided the same reasoning for denying most of the other plaintiffs as well, and their dismissals were not reversed.”

Ultimately, these plaintiffs all stated claims and should have had their day in court. At the very least, they deserved an individualized analysis and explanation for why their case would not proceed. We are considering all of our options and hope that this is not the end of the story for the deserving teachers. As for the two Kane plaintiffs whose dismissals were reversed, and the New Yorkers for Religious Liberties, Inc. v. City of New York plaintiffs, whose claims were also sent back for further proceedings below, the fight continues.”

Gibson also recently discussed the decision on Good Morning CHD with Teachers for Choice leader Michael Kane, who is one of the plaintiffs-appellants in the consolidated appeal. You can watch their conversation here.

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November 15, 2024

In a November 13 decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed most of the district court orders under appeal in New Yorkers for Religious Liberty et al. v. City of New York et al. The appeal consolidated lawsuits that had been brought by 34 New York City public sector workers whose requests for religious exemptions to the City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates had been denied.

The 34 workers waited over a year and a half for the decision after oral arguments were given before a panel of three judges on February 8, 2023. The list of workers includes many teachers and other public school employees, as well as workers for a range of other City agencies including FDNY, DSNY, and the Department of Buildings. Wednesday’s ruling was favorable to only two of them, whose claims were remanded back to lower courts.

The NYFRL plaintiffs-appellants were represented by a team of attorneys in the appeal, with Alliance Defending Freedom attorney John Bursch making oral arguments at the February 2023 hearing. The defendants-appellees included the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams, recently resigned NYC Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, the NYC Department of Education, and New York State Commissioner of Labor Roberta Reardon.

The NYFRL decision is somewhat complicated, due to the consolidation of cases, but the bottom line is that the appellate court rejected the plaintiffs-appellants’ arguments that the City’s public sector mandate violated the First Amendment, and also rejected most other claims that their exemptions should not have been denied.

The judges denied requests for reinstatement and backpay, and dismissed a request to rescind the mandate for NYC municipal workers as moot, writing:

“the City officially rescinded the Mandate on February 10, 2023—after we heard oral argument in these cases—and there is no evidence to suggest that Appellants have a reasonable expectation that is more than theoretical of its reinstatement.”

Workers who had hoped a definitive court ruling against the City’s mandates would prevent similar measures from being imposed in the future may find that assertion both disappointing and ironic.

The two exceptions in the NYFRL decision are for individuals whom the Court acknowledged may have been illegally denied religious exemptions. The judges sent their cases back to the lower courts for further litigation on their claims.

For the 32 remaining plaintiffs-appellants, one path that remains for this case is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appellate decision. I’ll let you know when I hear whether they plan to take it.

In the meantime, you can read the full decision for yourself. Michael Kane, who is one of the plaintiffs-appellants, included a downloadable PDF of it in his article on the decision on the Teachers for Choice Substack.

Conclusion of the 34-page federal appellate court decision in New Yorkers for Religious Liberty et al. v. NYC et al.

For more on NYFRL, here’s a 2022 conversation about the case with Sujata Gibson, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs-appellants: