New York City is facing four lawsuits related to a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem after seven people died and 118 were sickened in the July 2025 outbreak in Central Harlem
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Impacted victims and their families joined Crump at a news conference at 11 a.m. at the National Action Network House of Justice
on Thursday.
The lawsuits target the city, NYC Health + Hospitals and contractors responsible for maintaining cooling towers, claiming cooling towers connected to the outbreak weren’t properly tested, treated or maintained, and people weren’t warned quickly enough about the danger
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Approximately 41 people have signed onto the first set of suits the city’s been hit with over last year’s Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, which sickened at least 118 and killed seven people across July and August 2025
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The lawsuits being filed by Crump claim the city failed to properly test, treat and maintain the cooling towers, allege failures to comply with state and city cooling tower regulations and to warn the public of the danger, and seek damages for wrongful death, economic loss and emotional distress
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Thursday’s announcement comes as New York City deals with a separate, ongoing Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on the Upper East Side.
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and the New York City Health Department announced additional emergency measures to respond to a Legionnaires’ Disease community cluster on the Upper East Side that has sickened at least 23 people as of July 6
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Seven deaths have been reported this year, now matching the death toll from an outbreak in Harlem in 2025
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The current Upper East Side outbreak has drawn significant criticism of Mamdani’s response.
NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin, in an op-ed for the New York Post, pointed the finger at the mayor’s office, saying New Yorkers deserve “real answers from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration,” citing a failure of leadership, a lack of transparency and a lack of urgency
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Menin wrote “I repeatedly called on the Health Department to proactively disinfect cooling towers throughout the affected area…. Instead, the department chose to wait – and the crisis spread”
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Mamdani defended his administration’s approach.
“This is the most aggressive remediation and enforcement strategy that our city has ever taken to eliminate the source of Legionella bacteria,” he said
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“I’m frankly less interested in the politics of it all, more in the public health of it,” Mamdani said, noting “We made the decision to do both culture tests and PCR tests, so that meant that we could actually test immediately, disinfect any of the cooling towers that came back, and then additionally wait for the cultural results”
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Community Board President Valerie Mason rejected the city’s framing of the response.
“First of all, there are seven people dead,” Mason said. “There is no victory lap to be taken here or patting on the back. I am disgusted by this press release, ‘put a medal on me’ attitude”
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Mason told reporters “First of all, there are seven people dead,” then said “There is no victory lap to be taken here or patting on the back. I am disgusted by this press release, ‘put a medal on me’ attitude. There is no applause warranted here”
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Back in Harlem, the original outbreak that sparked Thursday’s lawsuits began in late July 2025.
Legionella bacteria was traced to cooling towers in the neighborhood, including at Harlem Hospital and the New York City Public Health Lab on West 137th Street
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The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene identified Harlem Hospital and the site of the city’s new public health laboratory as the sources of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Harlem that resulted in more than 100 cases and seven deaths
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The agency used molecular analysis to identify genetic matches between water samples taken from the two sites’ cooling towers and samples from people sickened by the disease
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In the months following that outbreak, several lawsuits have been filed targeting construction companies and the city itself.
Early suits targeted construction firms like Skanska USA and Rising Sun Construction.
The pair of lawsuits filed on Wednesday specifically took aim at Rising Sun Construction and Skanska USA Building, two companies that allegedly managed construction projects at and near Harlem Hospital
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Nuncio Quinto, a Long Island resident and union electrician for a subcontractor working under Skanska, alleged in his suit that the company had been aware the threat of an outbreak loomed over their worksites, with attorney Jared Scotto specifically citing a July 1 “bulletin” distributed by NYC Health and Hospitals to the construction companies as proof they were forewarned
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“Nobody gave them any warning that ‘we detected something, you should have your mask, we’re going to shut down the site until we can figure out these cooling towers are safe and free from legionella bacteria.’ Because it’s preventable,” Crump said, adding “Once you know, you have a duty to act”
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Lakisha Plowden said “My daughter won’t be able to spend time she was spending and do the things she was doing with her dad because her dad was taken from us — this was not a natural cause of death, this was devastating,” after her partner Bruce Scott contracted legionnaires’ disease during the outbreak and died, and her lawyers filed wrongful death notices of claim against the city for the Scott family and loved ones of three other people who they say died from legionnaires’ disease
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Attorney Ben Crump, who’s representing the Legionnaires’ victims in Manhattan, said “These entities that we are suing today all had a responsibility to ensure that the cooling towers and water systems did not harbor legionella bacteria”
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New City Council hearings on the Upper East Side outbreak are scheduled to examine the Mamdani administration’s handling of both clusters.