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The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that Cuomo has five business days to respond to a FOIL request to release data on COVID-19 in nursing homes after a lawsuit was filed by Sen. Jim Tedisco and the Empire Center for Public Policy.
The lawsuit sought the release of Health Emergency Response Data System data that is regularly submitted to the Department of Health by nursing homes and assisted living facilities throughout the state.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a report from the New York Attorney General’s Office that found the state may have undercounted the number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent.
“Clearly the best disinfectant is sunlight. Governor Cuomo’s coronavirus cover-up is crumbling down,” Tedesco said in a statement following the Supreme Court ruling. “Last week, the Attorney General issued a scathing report that begun to lift the Cuomo Administration’s veil of secrecy that was hiding the real number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19.”
The ruling was made by acting Albany Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor, who was critical of the Department of Health for stalling on reporting nursing home data for several months.
“DOH does not, in the Court’s opinion, offer an adequate explanation as to why it has not responded to that request within its estimated time period or to date,” O’Connor wrote. “Its continued failure to provide petitioner a response, given the straightforward nature of the request goes against FOIL’s broad standard of open and transparent government and is a violation of that statute.”
As part of the lawsuit, the state will also have to pay for the Empire Center’s legal fees and court costs to be reimbursed by the Department of Health.
Before Attorney Letitia James’ report was released, the state was claiming that less than 8,750 COVID-19 deaths were reported in nursing homes, which was subsequently updated by the Department of Health to more than 12,000.
“t’s obvious that the governor’s six-month cover-up and refusal to give us these numbers show he felt they mattered so he could hide any blame,” Tedesco added. “History has shown that the cover-up is often worse than what’s being covered-up. Sadly, a lack of transparency has been a hallmark of this administration.
“I want to thank Justice O’Connor for her ruling that demonstrates that this nursing home data is public information and the people have a right to know what their government is doing.”
In response to the ruling, officials with the Department of Health said that they were already working to respond to the data request and will be updating their website with all publicly available information, though it was unclear when that would happen.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that “with the preliminary audit complete, we were already in the process of responding to their FOIL request, and updating DOH’s website with publicly available information.”
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