Lipsman v. Cortes-Vazquez

Background

Daniel Jean Lipsman, proceeding without a lawyer, sued Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez in her capacity as Commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging. He challenged rules requiring face masks and social distancing for indoor programming at the City’s senior centers. The rules were imposed through New York City Executive Order No. 206 and guidance from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Lipsman alleged that the rules violated his constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. He argued that senior centers should admit seniors without requiring masks or social distancing if the members were vaccinated. Cortés-Vázquez moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that Lipsman’s procedural due process claim failed because the challenged rules were legislative in nature: they applied prospectively and generally to all City senior centers. The court therefore dismissed that claim.

The court also rejected the substantive due process claim. Lipsman did not identify a valid liberty or property interest, and, even assuming he had done so, the mask and social-distancing requirements were not arbitrary or irrational enough to be considered shocking to the conscience. The court took judicial notice that COVID-19 posed a public-health threat and that the threat had evolved and remained somewhat uncertain. It did not decide whether the separate standard from Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts applied, because the claim would fail even under that standard.

The court rejected the equal protection claim as well. It stated that age is not a protected class for equal protection purposes, so the rules were subject to rational-basis review, a highly deferential test asking whether the government chose a reasonable means of pursuing a legitimate goal. The court concluded that requiring masks and social distancing in senior centers was reasonably related to protecting public health, particularly given the COVID-19 threat to people over age sixty. It also noted that Lipsman did not identify a similarly situated comparator or plausibly allege the facts needed for a selective-enforcement or class-of-one theory.

The court further concluded that, to the extent the complaint asserted a claim under the Age Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6102, Lipsman had not satisfied the statute’s notice and exhaustion requirements. That claim therefore also failed.

Disposition

The court dismissed the complaint in its entirety. It denied Lipsman leave to amend, reasoning that the defects in his claims were substantive, that he had not identified facts that would cure them, and that he had already received an opportunity to amend after being warned that he would not receive another opportunity. The court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, directed the Clerk to enter judgment for the defendant, and ordered that a copy of the opinion and order be mailed to Lipsman. The opinion did not characterize the dismissal as with or without prejudice.