Friday, April 29, 2022

29 April 2022: Son of Nursing Home COVID Victim Sues Cuomo, DeRosa For Wrongful Death

Son of nursing home COVID victim sues Cuomo, DeRosa for wrongful death

This report from 28 April 2022 indicates New York's resigned-in-disgrace former governor, Andrew M. Cuomo has a new lawsuit to face, the first to directly challenge his deadly 25 March 2020 directive in contributing to excess COVID deaths in New York's nursing homes. The lawsuit also names former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa and Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. Here's an excerpt:

A man whose Korean War veteran father died after catching COVID-19 in a Brooklyn nursing home has filed a class action wrongful death suit against disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his former top aide Melissa DeRosa.

Daniel Arbeeny, 59, an outspoken critic of Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, claims his dad contracted the coronavirus and died because of a New York state directive that nursing homes admit COVID-19 patients. The order was implemented in March 2020 by the state health department.

“This policy of mandatory admission, non-testing and comingling of nursing home residents constituted reckless endangerment by all of the Defendants,” according to the suit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

In a phone interview with The Post, Arbeeny said the suit — which also names the state and ex-Health Department boss Howard Zucker as defendants — was about holding state officials to account. It’s also an effort to get justice for the families who had relatives die in nursing homes....

Arbeeny, a New York native who lives in Cobble Hill, pointed to the fact that a British court ruled this week that the UK’s nursing home policy, which was similar to the Empire State’s, was illegal.

“Cuomo knew what he was doing,” Arbeeny told The Post. “Wrongful death is wrongful death, whether it’s the state or not. It’s wrong. The government needs to make amends for this.”

Cuomo's PR team responded:

In a statement, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the order had no effect on COVID outbreaks in nursing homes.

“For all the emotion and politics generated around this issue, the facts are that both the AG and the Assembly critically examined this and concluded that the DOH March order had nothing to do with introducing COVID in nursing homes — also, as previously stated, Ms. DeRosa has nothing to do with this directive,” Azzopardi said in an email.

“We expect any fair hearing in a court of law will also bear this out,” he added.

On 16 June 2021, a New York State Bar Association task force determined Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive did contribute to excess COVID deaths in New York nursing homes. Here's more background on that topic from the timeline:

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