NYMP Laws & Orders #11: NYC Top Lawyer Nominee Headed to Full City Council Vote Today, Majority of Garry v. Adams Claims Dismissed, Open Letters Call for Reinstatement and Transparency

Muriel Goode-Trufant is on track to be confirmed as Corporation Counsel this afternoon, large lawsuit against denial of religious exemptions sees claims dismissed, workers renew push for reinstatement

AFTERNOON UPDATE: New York City Council has voted to confirm Muriel Goode-Trufant as Corporation Counsel. In a hearing this afternoon, 41 City Council Members voted to confirm Goode-Trufant as head of the City's Law Department, with 7 voting against her and 3 abstaining.

NYC Corporation Counsel Nominee Muriel Goode-Trufant Headed to Full City Council Vote This Afternoon

Following last month’s New York City Council Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections hearing on the nomination of Muriel Goode-Trufant to be the City’s next Corporation Counsel, her nomination is headed to a floor vote by the full City Council today. Workers who lost their jobs under the City’s vaccine mandates attended the committee hearing and opposed the nomination.

Goode-Trufant’s nomination was approved by the committee in an official vote this morning, with only Council Member Joe Borelli voting against it. Borelli has been a supporter of reinstating workers fired under the City’s vaccine mandates, and sponsored the proposed Resolution 5 legislation that seeks to support it.

The committee members who approved the nomination were Keith Powers, Adrienne Adams, Diana Ayala, Justin Brannan, Gale Brewer, Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Pierina Sanchez. Members Crystal Hudson and Rafael Salamanca were absent.

Given Goode-Trufant’s history of litigating against workers who were fired under the City’s vaccine mandates, some advocates of workers still fighting for reinstatement in court are considering Council Members’ votes on her confirmation as the City’s top lawyer to be an indication of whether they support reinstatement.

Bravest for Choice member Matt Connor commented ahead of the vote:

“We have been patient and diplomatic in the hopes for a legislative solution, but the clock has run out. Any vote in favor of confirming Muriel Goode-Trufant is a vote against reinstatement and compensation, and against the workers in this movement. We have made this clear to the City Council members as well.

Hopefully everyone comes to their senses sooner than later, but if Trufant is confirmed, I consider that a roll call of who is really on our side here. It's time that those opposing us, or laying down on the fight, pay a political price for their positions in my opinion.”

76 of 80 Claims Dismissed in Garry v. Adams Lawsuit

A Bronx Supreme Court decision issued by Judge Alison Tuitt has dismissed the claims of 76 petitioners in Garry et al. v. Adams et al., leaving just four petitioners’ claims to proceed.

The Article 78 lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams and the City of New York was filed in January 2023 by workers who were denied religious accommodations and fired under the City’s public sector vaccine mandates, and asked for reinstatement and over $250 million in damages. The claims were not all dismissed for the same reason. In her decision, Judge Tuitt grouped them into five different reasons for dismissal.

The petitioners’ attorney, James Mermigis, commented on the decision, saying, “For some Plaintiffs, the case is moving forward. Not all Plaintiffs were dismissed and I am reviewing about appealing.” I’ll bring you an update if this case moves into appeals.

Fired NYC Workers, Congressman, Unvaccinated New Yorkers Push for Reinstatement and Transparency with Open Letters

New York City workers who lost their jobs under the City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates are calling upon the incoming Trump administration to support their efforts to obtain reinstatement and back pay. Over 250 of them signed a November 20 open letter written by affected workers Diane Pagen and Aura Moody, and addressed to Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and RFK Jr. You can read the full letter on the Teachers for Choice Substack.

New York entrepreneur Josh Stylman also published an open letter to City Councilman Lincoln Restler, calling on him to have a public conversation about reinstatement for workers and the City’s vaccine mandate policies. Restler has been a strong supporter of mandates and maintained a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for his own staff well into 2023. He also publicly criticized Josh Stylman for opposing vaccine mandates in 2022, in the lead-up to Stylman resigning from the Brooklyn brewery he had founded as a result of the controversy over his opposition to mandates.

More recently, Councilman Restler has opposed City Council Resolution 5, which calls for the reinstatement of City workers through state legislation. Workers currently seeking reinstatement and back pay responded by holding a turkey giveaway outside Restler’s Brooklyn office just before Thanksgiving, handing out free turkeys to fired workers. You can find coverage of that event and interviews with workers who attended on Cafecito Break and Good Morning CHD.

Restler has not responded to Stylman’s letter or commented on the turkey giveaway.

In another letter-writing effort, New York Congressman Nick Langworthy has renewed his call for transparency on the issue of problem codes. These codes are said to have been applied to the personnel files of NYC Department of Education teachers who declined to take a COVID-19 vaccine, in defiance of the DOE vaccine mandate.

Problem codes are typically used to indicate a serious violation, crime, or disciplinary problem with a teacher, and teachers who were fired under the mandate have said that problem codes remaining in their files have interfered with them gaining new employment.

Langworthy calls for the DOE to answer questions about the problem codes in his December 2 letter to NYC Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. The letter is a follow-up to a similar letter Langworthy sent to the previous chancellor, David Banks, in June 2023. That first letter did not receive a response.

Laws & Orders is a periodic dispatch from the New York Mandate Podcast that gives a rundown of recent legal, regulatory, and policy developments related to the pandemic and its aftermath, with a New York focus.