Grieving families sue NYC over deadly 2025 Legionnaires disease outbreak as Mamdani faces heat for new deadly cluster

Grieving families and survivors of a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak linked to city-owned buildings in Harlem sued the Big Apple on Thursday — demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani take action as he deals with a new deadly cluster.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.An emotional Lakisha Power cradled her 6-year-old daughter during the news conference, recounting afterward how her fiancée Bruce Scott died from the disease while holding her hand in Harlem Hospital.“The last time she’s seen her dad, he was leaving to go to the hospital,” she said.

“And he never came back out.“The dynamic that’s so troubling that these were just regular people living in Harlem, unsuspecting at all.”The lawsuits contend that more than 100 people in Harlem contracted the disease because Big Apple officials and contractors effectively let Legionella bacteria fester in cooling towers atop the city’s Public Health Lab and Harlem Hospital — the building where Power died.The wrongful death claim comes from Power’s family, as well as those of Ronald Israel, Clara Rodriguez, Edgar Tatum Jr.and Rachel Tew, who also died during the outbreak.The two other suits cover surviving victims and accuse the city, New York City Health + Hospital, the city’s Economic Development Corporation, construction firm Skanska USA Building and four contractors of negligence and maintaining a public nuisance.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’ administration.Crump called on Mamdani to do right by the families, even if the outbreak happened under his predecessor’s watch.He also slyly mentioned this summer’s Legionnaires’ disease cluster on the Upper East Side that has so far ...