Coney Island Prep v. United States Department of Health And Human Services

Background

Coney Island Prep, Leslie-Bernard Joseph, Housing Works, Inc., Charles King, New York City Councilmember Mark Levine, and Alexandra Greenberg sued the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, Robert Kadlec, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Robert R. Redfield. The plaintiffs brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law governing agency action. They alleged that the defendants failed to complete required reports, biosurveillance-related tasks, and public participation opportunities concerning public-health preparedness. They also alleged that the defendants acted arbitrarily and capriciously by moving daily COVID-19 hospitalization reporting from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network database to the HHS Protect database.

The plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction—an order providing temporary relief while a case continues. They sought to require the defendants to provide the allegedly missing reports and participation opportunities and to return to the earlier database. The defendants opposed the motion, arguing that they had completed or were completing many of the required tasks, that some deadlines had not yet arrived, and that the plaintiffs had not shown a concrete injury.

Legal standard

The court explained that a preliminary injunction generally requires proof of irreparable harm, meaning harm that is actual and imminent and cannot be adequately remedied with money. Because the requested injunction would require the defendants to take affirmative action, the plaintiffs had to make a strong showing of irreparable harm and a clear or substantial likelihood of success on the merits.

Court’s analysis

The court held that the plaintiffs had not made the required strong showing of irreparable harm. Regarding the withheld reports and data, the court found that the plaintiffs generally asserted that the information was important without identifying what specific information they needed, whether it was in the reports, or how it would concretely assist their pandemic response. The court also noted that most of the information did not directly concern COVID-19.

The court separately found that the plaintiffs had not shown concrete harm from the shift from the National Healthcare Safety Network database to HHS Protect. Although the complaint stated that public-health officials, researchers, health systems, and hospitals relied on the earlier data, the plaintiffs did not allege that they themselves had accessed or used either database.

The court also rejected the claimed procedural injury. It concluded that the plaintiffs had not shown that the relevant laws entitled them to the participation opportunities they identified. For example, the court stated that the cited provision did not require notice-and-comment rulemaking for the technical and reporting standards, and that the plaintiffs did not fit the statutory categories of participants for certain biosurveillance and genomic-engineering meetings. The court further found that the alleged harms from delayed public participation were speculative.

Finally, the court rejected the organizational-injury argument by Coney Island Prep and Housing Works. Those organizations had diverted resources to pandemic-related activities, but the court found that the diversion resulted from the pandemic rather than from the defendants’ alleged actions or inaction. The court was not persuaded that compliance with the alleged obligations would necessarily have ended or reduced the pandemic.

The court stated that it therefore did not need to decide the defendants’ arguments concerning standing, the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, or whether the requested relief served the public interest.

Disposition

Judge Victor Marrero denied the motion of Coney Island Prep, Leslie-Bernard Joseph, Housing Works, Inc., Charles King, Mark Levine, and Alexandra Greenberg for a preliminary injunction. The opinion did not resolve the underlying Administrative Procedure Act claims.