Deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak was ‘completely preventable,’ lawyer contends — putting NYC on lawsuit notice

Victims of the deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak gripping Harlem will sue the Big Apple for allegedly letting bacteria fester in city-owned cooling towers, it was announced Wednesday.

The city was hit by notices of claim — or formal declarations of an intent to sue — from two construction workers for claim they contracted Legionnaires’ because both the city and their employers allegedly failed to keep them safe.

“This wasn’t a natural disaster,” high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a press conference announcing the legal action with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“The medical tragedy that led to the deaths of five citizens from Harlem, that we know about, was a completely preventable outbreak,” Crump charged.

The notices stem from a pair of lawsuits, also filed Wednesday, against two construction companies involved in work at or near the city’s Harlem Hospital — where a cooling tower was one of 12 sites in the storied neighborhood that tested positive for Legionnaires’-causing bacteria.

Cooling towers atop four city-owned properties had Legionella, Department of Health officials have said.

Crump alleged that rainwater from July storms was left untreated in cooling towers, including atop Harlem Hospital, leading to conditions that spawned the outbreak, which has killed five New Yorkers and sickened more than 100.

New York City has yet to be officially sued because the law requires a 30-day waiting period after filing a notice of claim against the city.

But those upcoming filings against the city would likely build off the suits filed by construction workers Duane Headley and Nunzio Quinto, who respectively worked for general contractors Skanska USA Building and Rising Sun Construction.

Skanska is the main contractor for the new NYC Public Health Laboratory building at 40 West 137th St. where Quinto worked and allegedly contracted the deadly bacteria.

The 10-story, 240,000-square-foot facility broke ground in 2022, with the city’s Economic Development Corporation and DOH overseeing the work — which has been planning on a 2026 occupancy, according to New York YIMBY.

Quinto, who spoke alongside Crump and Sharpton, held out his arm to show the dark marks from the rounds of antibiotic treatment he received to fight the pneumonia-like illness.

He contended his employer didn’t tell his coworkers that he fell ill.

“I can’t have a safe place to work?” he said. “This is New York City, I can’t have a safe place.”

Rising Sun Construction is the main contractor at Harlem Hospital’s Mural Pavilion at 506 Lenox Ave. — on the same block as the Public Health Laboratory project — which opened to the public in 2012.

What work was being done at the facility this summer is unclear.

The risk of Legionnaires’ disease during hot Big Apple summers is so predictable that the construction companies should have protected their workers, but didn’t, argued Jared Scotto, an attorney with Weitz and Luxenberg, the firm handling the cases with Crump.

“We believe that the construction companies were on notice that the Legionella bacteria contamination was a possibility based on bulletins that were given out at the beginning of July,” Scotto said.

The construction companies didn’t return requests for comment.

Don Weiss, the former surveillance director for the DOH who helped oversee the response to The Bronx’s 2015 Legionnaires’ outbreak, said he was surprised at the disease’s horrific spread.

He deemed it problematic that the city government’s own buildings tested positive for Legionella bacteria.

“It doesn’t look good. The city should hold itself to a higher standard,” he said.

Weiss’ own analysis of inspection records for 97 cooling towers in the Harlem ZIP codes found that just 73% conducted Legionella tests were completed within the required 90 days, meaning 27% were effectively left alone.

A DOH spokesperson emphasized an investigation into the outbreak’s cause was ongoing.

“Molecular testing may help us determine which cooling tower — or cooling towers — were the source of the bacteria in the Central Harlem cluster,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The Public Health Lab is still determining a match through DNA sequencing and we expect final results soon.”

Officials with Health + Hospitals argued the lawsuit notice focused on Legionella at Harlem Hospital’s cooling tower ignores the 11 other towers that tested positive.

“NYC Health + Hospitals has a one of the most rigorous cooling tower safety and inspection programs, exceeding City testing and cleaning requirements,” a statement from the hospital system reads. “We inspect towers every day; further, we look for legionella weekly instead of the required every 90 days.”

Sharpton argued that Harlem had been neglected.

“It is frightening to us that there’s not been accountability in this situation,” he said. “So, we make this move to begin the process of accountability.”