More than 50 Harlem residents and family members filed suit against New York City this week over the 2025 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that killed seven people and sickened more than 100, alleging that the city and its contractors failed to maintain cooling towers and did not warn the public of the danger.
Attorney Ben Crump, joined by co-counsel Jared Scotto and Nabeha Shaer, filed the complaints Thursday on behalf of five of the seven people who died and 41 individuals and families who say they were harmed, UPI reported. The filings include a wrongful death suit.
The defendants include the City of New York, the health department, NYC Health and Hospitals, and the construction firm Skanska, according to The Emancipator. The complaints allege the plaintiffs were exposed to Legionella bacteria near cooling towers that tested positive at Harlem Hospital and the city's Public Health Lab on 137th Street.
The suits argue the city failed to develop and follow a water management plan required under the New York State Sanitary Code, and did not meet the code's requirements for cooling tower registration, inspection and testing, UPI reported. They also allege the city was slow to test and treat the towers and failed to warn residents, according to ABC7.
The outbreak began in late July 2025 and was clustered across five ZIP codes in Central Harlem. It produced 118 confirmed cases, hospitalized 92 people and killed seven, in what officials described as the city's worst outbreak in nearly a decade. Health officials said it was contained by late August. Bacteria were traced to a dozen cooling towers in the neighborhood.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, appeared at a press conference announcing the suits and said those affected would not be forgotten. Crump argued that Harlem, a historically Black neighborhood, received less attention during the outbreak than other parts of the city, UPI reported.
Governor Kathy Hochul has since signed legislation requiring building owners to disinfect cooling towers more frequently and raising penalties for noncompliance, NY1 reported.
The lawsuits are not connected to a separate Legionnaires' outbreak on the Upper East Side this summer, which has also resulted in seven deaths, according to ABC7.