A federal judge yesterday certified a class action in a case stemming from last year’s Hurricane Irene in which advocates for the disabled allege New York City’s emergency preparedness plans did not adequately address the needs of the handicapped. Southern District Judge Jesse Furman (See Profile), making clear that he was not opining on the merits of the case slated for trial Dec. 10, said in a 19-page decision that the Brooklyn Center for Independence for the Disabled and two individual plaintiffs have standing to seek class damages for threat of future harm. “It is, of course, not possible to know with certainty if or when disaster will strike the City, butas the tragic events of the past few weeks make abundantly clearit is beyond ‘mere conjecture’ that another disaster, whether natural or man made, will occur and that it will seriously affect members of the proposed class,” Furman wrote in Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled v. Bloomberg, 11 Civ. 6690, noting that there are roughly 900,000 people with disabilities in the city.
Furman described the class as “all people with disabilities, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, who are within the City of New York and the jurisdiction served by the City of New York’s emergency preparedness programs and services.” He stressed that the fact that the plaintiffs have sustained their burden for class certification does not mean they are entitled to relief. “It may be, as defendants vigorously assert, that the plaintiff’s claims were ‘patently false’ and that the City has ‘carefully developed sophisticated operational and logistical plans and supporting resources that effectively serve the health and safety needs of all New Yorkers during emergencies, including those with disabilities,’” Furman said.
