A civil case against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and members of his administration was dismissed by a federal district judge on Monday.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla found that families who lost loved ones to Covid in nursing homes during the pandemic did not have a federal right to sue for monetary damages.
The case stems back to a March 2020 directive from the Cuomo administration to prohibit nursing homes from refusing admittance to patients diagnosed with Covid. While Failla’s opinion doesn’t deny the allegation that the state administration’s decision was to blame for thousands of nursing home resident deaths in the first year of the pandemic, plaintiffs presented a weak case for federal redress.
“The amended complaint contains no allegations that the nursing homes, as the alleged perpetrators of ‘private violence,’ committed a state-sanctioned violent act that caused decedents harm,” Failla wrote. “Instead, the amended complaint merely pleads action that ‘increased the likelihood’ that decedents would be unsafe.”
While state-created danger doctrine should impose liability “with considerable stringency,” the plaintiffs can’t rely on the state-created danger exception as the basis for their due process claim, Failla noted.
Plaintiffs failed to assert that a special relationship exemption arose as well, which asserts that in limited circumstances, “the Constitution imposes upon the state affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals.”
Residents were voluntarily placed in nursing homes and were free to seek alternative methods of treatment, Failla said.
The dismissal comes on the heels of Cuomo’s plans to restart his political career following exile due to the Covid scandals and sexual harassment allegations; he had resigned from his position as governor in 2021.
Cuomo and his administration have also been at the center of state and federal investigations into the underreporting of the number of nursing home residents who died as a result of Covid. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in October recommended criminal charges against Cuomo, over purported lies he told during House investigations into nursing home fatalities in the state.
Now, he’s aiming to run for New York City mayor.
