{"id":315762,"date":"2026-08-07T03:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315762\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T03:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T03:10:23","slug":"grieving-families-sue-nyc-over-deadly-2025-legionnaires-disease-outbreak-as-mamdani-faces-heat-for-new-deadly-cluster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315762\/","title":{"rendered":"Grieving families sue NYC over deadly 2025 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak — as Mamdani faces heat for new deadly cluster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grieving families and survivors of a deadly Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak linked to city-owned buildings in Harlem<\/a> sued the Big Apple on Thursday \u2014 demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani take action as he deals with a new deadly cluster.<\/p>\n

The trio of lawsuits unveiled by the Rev. Al Sharpton and civil rights attorney Ben Crump in Harlem included a wrongful death claim covering five of the seven people who tragically died in the 2025 outbreak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An emotional Lakisha Plowden cradled her 6-year-old daughter during the news conference, recounting afterward how her fianc\u00e9e Bruce Scott died from the disease while holding her hand in Harlem Hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time she\u2019s seen her dad, he was leaving to go to the hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he never came back out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dynamic that\u2019s so troubling that these were just regular people living in Harlem, unsuspecting at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grieving families \u2014 with the backing of the Rev. Al Sharpton and civil rights attorney Ben Crump \u2014 sued the Big Apple on Thursday over a 2025 Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak. William Farrington for the New York Post<\/p>\n

The lawsuits contend that more than 100 people in Harlem contracted the disease<\/a> because Big Apple officials and contractors effectively let Legionella bacteria fester in cooling towers atop the city\u2019s Public Health Lab and Harlem Hospital \u2014 the building where Scott died.<\/p>\n

The wrongful death claim comes from Plowden\u2019s family, as well as those of Ronald Israel, Clara Rodriguez, Edgar Tatum Jr. and Rachel Tew, who also died during the outbreak.<\/p>\n

The two other suits cover surviving victims and accuse the city, New York City Health + Hospital, the city\u2019s Economic Development Corporation, construction firm Skanska USA Building and four contractors of negligence and maintaining a public nuisance.<\/p>\n

The trio of lawsuits dovetailed with related filings that Crump and Sharpton unveiled last year, pointing the finger at city-owned buildings and, ultimately, then-Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 administration.<\/p>\n

City-owned Harlem Hospital was linked to the 2025 outbreak. Google Earth<\/p>\n

Crump called on Mamdani to do right by the families, even if the outbreak happened under his predecessor\u2019s watch.<\/p>\n

He also slyly mentioned this summer\u2019s Legionnaires\u2019 disease cluster on the Upper East Side that has so far left seven people<\/a> dead and sickened dozens of others \u2014 an outbreak for which Mamdani faced fire over <\/a>his administration\u2019s alleged flat-footed response.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, while we applaud Mamdani\u2019s expeditious efforts to address and stop the Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak on the Upper East Side just last month, we urge Mamdani and the city to properly resolve this matter with these families,\u201d Crump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people who were injured, are killed as a result of this negligence, and the survivors and the families of the deceased deserve to have this matter resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpton called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to act. William Farrington for the New York Post<\/p>\n

Sharpton also appealed to Mamdani to act without delay.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lives mean something,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Legionnaires\u2019 disease was bad in one part of town, it should be valued the same in every part. And that is what this is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the city\u2019s law department maintained officials worked to protect New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtecting public health and safety is at the center of the City\u2019s response,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cWe will carefully review these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grieving families and survivors of a deadly Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak linked to city-owned buildings in Harlem sued the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11159,469,2850,8467,57,9,56,63,65,64,58,82],"class_list":["post-315762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-al-sharpton","tag-harlem","tag-lawsuits","tag-legionnaires-disease","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315762","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=315762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}