The Supreme Court of the United States has declined to hear a wrongful death lawsuit filed against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, effectively ending a legal challenge tied to the state’s COVID-era nursing home policies, as reported by Fox News.
The case was brought by Brooklyn resident Daniel Arbeeny, who alleged that Cuomo’s pandemic directives contributed to the 2020 death of his father, Norman Arbeeny, at age 89. The elder Arbeeny had been released from a Cobble Hill nursing home where COVID-positive patients had been housed.
According to court records, Arbeeny sued Cuomo and then-health commissioner Howard Zucker under federal civil rights law and a state wrongful death statute. The lawsuit argued that policies requiring nursing homes to accept patients returning from hospitals, regardless of COVID-19 status, played a role in fatalities among vulnerable residents.
A lower federal court dismissed the case on qualified immunity grounds, a legal doctrine that generally protects government officials from liability for actions taken in their official roles. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that dismissal, and the Supreme Court’s decision not to take the case leaves those rulings in place.
Hellbound and Down 