41 Victims File Suit Over 2025 Harlem Legionnaires Outbreak That Killed Seven, as City Faces Second Cluster

Attorney Ben Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton filed three lawsuits Thursday in New York State Supreme Court on behalf of 41 people connected to the 2025 Legionnaires disease outbreak in Central Harlem, according to a statement from Crump's office.

One suit covers the estates of five people who died: Bruce Scott, Clara Rodriguez, Ronald Israel, Edgar Tatum Jr. and Rachel Tew. Two more suits seek damages for 36 people who the filings say got sick after being in or near the affected buildings, according to Crump's office.

The outbreak was first identified by city health officials in July 2025 and lasted several weeks before being declared over, according to CBS News. In total, 118 people were sickened and seven died. Investigators traced the source to 12 cooling towers across Central Harlem, including units atop Harlem Hospital and the city's Public Health Laboratory, CBS News reported.

The lawsuits name New York City, NYC Health + Hospitals, the city's Economic Development Corporation, construction firm Skanska USA Building, and several other contractors as defendants. They allege negligence, public nuisance and wrongful death, and claim the defendants failed to develop or follow a required water management plan under the New York State Sanitary Code, and failed to meet registration, inspection, testing and remediation requirements for the towers, according to the filings described by Crump's office.

One of the families' claims: the towers weren't properly tested or treated, and people in the area weren't warned quickly enough that Legionella bacteria was present, according to CBS News.

Lakisha Power, whose fiancé Bruce Scott died from the disease at Harlem Hospital, spoke at a Thursday news conference alongside her 6-year-old daughter. She said Scott died holding her hand, according to the New York Post. "The last time she's seen her dad, he was leaving to go to the hospital," Power said. "And he never came back out."

Crump called the outbreak preventable. "An outbreak of this magnitude does not happen in a vacuum," he said in a statement from his office. "Public health safeguards exist for a reason, and when they are not followed, families, workers, and entire communities bear the consequences."

A spokesperson for NYC Health + Hospitals' law department said the agency will review the cases. "Protecting public health and safety is at the center of the City's response," the agency said in a statement to CBS News.

A second outbreak complicates the timing

The Harlem lawsuits arrive weeks after health officials declared an end to a separate, unrelated Legionnaires cluster on the Upper East Side, which killed seven people and sickened 92 others this summer, according to CBS News. That outbreak unfolded on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's watch, drawing criticism over what the New York Post described as a slow initial response from his administration.

Crump was careful to separate the two outbreaks in his public remarks. He credited Mamdani for what he called "expeditious efforts to address and stop the Legionnaires outbreak on the Upper East Side," while still pressing the mayor to resolve the Harlem case, which predates Mamdani's term and occurred under then-Mayor Eric Adams. "We urge Mamdani and the city to properly resolve this matter with these families," Crump said, according to the Post.

The Harlem outbreak was identified and largely handled during the Adams administration in mid-to-late 2025. Mamdani inherited the litigation, not the underlying failure. Whether his administration moves faster to settle or fight the Harlem claims than it did in responding to the Upper East Side cluster remains to be seen.

The city isn't without a response of its own. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation this week, effective Wednesday, tightening cooling tower inspection rules statewide, according to CBS News. The law requires twice-yearly certifications, faster remediation timelines and stiffer penalties for violations.

Attorneys for the Harlem victims say that doesn't change what already happened. A widow of one of the Upper East Side victims has also said she plans to file her own lawsuit once officials confirm which building's cooling tower caused that outbreak, targeting the building's owner directly, according to CBS News.

No court date has been set for the Harlem cases. NYC Health + Hospitals has not indicated whether it will contest the claims or seek a settlement, leaving open how the city intends to respond to 41 plaintiffs and five wrongful death claims tied to a public health failure now more than a year old.