{"id":27882,"date":"2025-11-04T06:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T06:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/27882\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T06:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T06:14:09","slug":"appeals-court-tosses-staten-island-judges-anti-mask-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/27882\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court tosses Staten Island judge\u2019s anti-mask ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hon. Ralph Porzio. Brooklyn Eagle photo<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The city\u2019s mask fight is over, and this round goes to the Health Department.<\/p>\n

A state appeals court has wiped out a Staten Island judge\u2019s decision that struck down New York City\u2019s COVID-era mask mandate for toddlers, blasting the lower court for \u201cplaying doctor\u201d and overruling health experts.<\/p>\n

The Appellate Division, Second Department, ruled on Oct. 22 that Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio went too far when he declared the city\u2019s 2021 order requiring children over age two to wear masks in daycare \u201carbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The panel said the judge had no business conducting his own research and second-guessing the medical community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts will not substitute their judgment of a public health problem for that of eminently qualified physicians,\u201d the justices wrote, calling Porzio\u2019s independent health analysis improper.<\/p>\n

The order, issued by then-Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi at the height of the pandemic, has long been rescinded, but the city pushed to have Porzio\u2019s decision erased from the books to prevent it from being cited as precedent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The appellate court agreed, dismissing the case as moot and vacating both of Porzio\u2019s rulings in full.<\/p>\n

The decision effectively restores the city\u2019s authority to impose health mandates in emergencies and slaps down the growing trend of trial judges overturning them on their own terms.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hon. Ralph Porzio. Brooklyn Eagle photo The city\u2019s mask fight is over, and this round goes to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[17526,17527,17528,5514,3308,17529,2953,9,24,63,17530,17531,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-27882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-appellate-division","tag-appellate-division-second-judicial-department","tag-covid-response","tag-covid-19","tag-daily-bulletin","tag-face-masks","tag-health","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-health-department","tag-ralph-porzio","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}