The U.S. Supreme Court has shut down a high-profile wrongful-death lawsuit accusing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of responsibility for COVID-19 fatalities in the state’s nursing homes, leaving intact lower-court rulings that dismissed the families' claims. The case was among several legal challenges targeting Cuomo’s March 2020 pandemic directives, which plaintiffs say pushed nursing homes to take in hospital patients with COVID-19 and helped spark deadly outbreaks in long-term-care facilities.
According to the Supreme Court, the justices declined to hear the case in their Monday order list. The petition, filed in February, was listed on the docket as No. 25-933.
Daniel Arbeeny, who brought the suit after his father Norman died in April 2020, told the New York Post that “the Supreme Court doesn’t erase what was done” and said the record shows COVID-positive patients were sent back into nursing homes with deadly results.
Lower Courts Tossed the Claims
Federal judges had already thrown out the families’ federal claims, and the Second Circuit affirmed that outcome in November 2025, finding that state officials were entitled to qualified immunity during the chaotic early weeks of the pandemic, according to Bloomberg Law. The appeal largely turned on whether the rights the plaintiffs relied on were clearly established at the time state officials made their decisions.
What the Case Centered On
The litigation targets the March 25, 2020 NYSDOH advisory, which directed nursing homes not to deny re-admission solely because of a confirmed or suspected COVID-19 diagnosis. Plaintiffs’ filings and later investigations pointed to discrepancies in how the state counted nursing-home deaths, a problem highlighted in the state Attorney General’s report. The complaint details specific resident accounts and facility conditions, all laid out in the federal record and available in the federal court filing.
Legal Implications
With the Supreme Court refusing to take the appeal, the Second Circuit’s qualified-immunity ruling remains in place and the federal damages route in this case is effectively closed for the families. The move locks in the legal result reached by the lower courts, even as the facts and politics surrounding the 2020 nursing-home policy continue to face intense scrutiny.
Political Aftershocks
The litigation has followed Cuomo since his August 2021 resignation amid a separate sexual-harassment investigation, as reported by the AP, and it resurfaced during his 2025 run for New York City mayor, which ended in defeat, according to PBS. The fight over pandemic-era nursing-home policy remains a political and legal flashpoint across New York, even with this particular lawsuit now effectively at a dead end.
