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Nearly four years after a New York judge ordered New York City to reinstate firefighter Timothy Rivicci and pay him back wages after he was fired for refusing to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the city is still fighting the court-ordered back pay.
Rivicci is headed back to court on Sept. 11 — the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Fire Department of New York (FDNY) first responders.
“It’s obviously a sacred and solemn day for, especially, the FDNY family and for New York City,” Rivicci’s attorney Christina Martinez said Tuesday on CHD.TV.
The timing is especially personal for Rivicci because firefighters across New York will be honoring colleagues who died in the attacks.
“There is a painful irony in Tim having to walk into court on September 11,” Martinez said in a Teachers for Choice Substack post. “Tim has given more than enough to this City. It is long past time for the City to stop fighting him and honor the judgment he already won,” she said.
Unvaccinated workers didn’t get back pay, most didn’t get their jobs back
Rivicci, a Staten Island firefighter, sued the city for denying his request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In October 2022, the New York Supreme Court ruled in his favor, annulling Rivicci’s termination.
The judge ordered the city to reinstate Rivicci and awarded him back pay dating to Nov. 5, 2021, along with attorney’s fees.
The city appealed. The appeal was initially dismissed after the city missed a deadline. However, the Appellate Division, Second Department, later vacated that dismissal and allowed the city to pursue the appeal.
Rivicci eventually returned to the firehouse. But nearly four years after his court victory, his back pay remains unresolved.
Rivicci’s fight is part of a larger problem, attorneys and advocates say: Many New York City workers who lost their jobs over the vaccine mandates still have not received reinstatement or back pay.
“We have to shine a light on this because people think we got back pay. We’re all back to our jobs,” Michael Kane, director of advocacy at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said on “Good Morning, CHD.”
Kane was also fired from his job as a New York City school teacher over the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“I didn’t get back pay. The overwhelming majority of fired, unvaccinated workers didn’t get back pay and didn’t get back to their jobs,” he said.
‘The mandate ended. But for so many … the consequences didn’t end’
The legal fight took a turn when New York City began appealing cases it had initially allowed workers to win. Martinez said the city initially didn’t appeal many of the cases it lost, but later changed course.
“There was a shift at some point,” she said. “The city started to get the idea that, ‘Oh, we can maybe appeal these cases and win.’”
She said the city then successfully moved to reinstate Rivicci’s previously dismissed appeal and began appealing other firefighter cases.
“There are workers that are still fighting for reinstatement and still waiting for their own resolution,” Martinez said.
For those workers, ending the mandate did not end the fight.
“The emergency ended, the mandate ended. But for so many … the consequences didn’t end,” Martinez said. She added:
“We’re talking about people who lost their salaries, their benefits, their pensions, their financial security. … They spent years trying to put their lives back together. And it’s falling apart, and the city doesn’t stop. … What is accomplished by the city by continuing to fight and put these families through hell and litigation year after year?”
Kane accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration of dragging out the fight. Kane said:
“This is in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s New York, the man who fables himself a working-class hero. He is anything but. He’s putting working-class people into debt, into poverty, losing their homes, losing mortgages, getting kicked out of their apartments. … We are seeing him fight tooth and nail to destroy working-class New Yorkers’ lives.”
‘The tide is really turning, and the facts are becoming undeniable’
But the legal fight may be entering a new phase. Some of the cases are now surviving motions to dismiss and beginning to settle for substantial amounts, attorney Sujata Gibson said.
“People aren’t asking … for the world,” Gibson said. “They’re just asking for their back pay. All they ever wanted was to go back to work, you know, and the city really made that very difficult. But the tide is really turning, and the facts are becoming undeniable,” she said.
Gibson pointed to recently unredacted emails obtained through New York’s Freedom of Information Law that could affect lawsuits brought by workers who were denied religious exemptions.
The emails, obtained in March 2026 after a three-year records battle, show senior city officials — including then-New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi — and government lawyers discussing how to respond to religious exemption requests.
The records offer a behind-the-scenes look at how city officials and lawyers approached religious exemption requests and raise questions about the information used to determine whether workers qualified for religious accommodations, Gibson said.
“We’ve got the commissioner of health on an email chain with all of the city’s highest operatives plotting how to categorically exclude certain beliefs they don’t like,” Gibson said.
Some emails discussed requiring workers seeking religious exemptions to demonstrate that they had consistently avoided medications and other products such as vaccines allegedly connected to fetal cell lines.
She pointed specifically to a list of medications, including Tylenol, that city officials said — but could not verify — were associated with aborted fetal cells.
“Thousands of workers were denied religious accommodation because they didn’t think to mention that they didn’t … take Tylenol,” Gibson said. “Well, these emails show that [Chokshi] couldn’t verify that fact. It’s not true.”
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‘It is deplorable what Mamdani and New York City are doing’
For Rivicci, the upcoming hearing means returning to court despite having won his case.
“Tim Rivicci has already fought this battle and won,” Martinez said in a Substack post. “The City should have honored that ruling instead of forcing him to spend years continuing to fight for what the court already determined he was owed.”
The Sept. 11 hearing will take place as firefighters and New Yorkers across the city mark the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Kane called the timing unacceptable.
“It is deplorable what Mamdani and New York City are doing to a firefighter on Sept. 11,” he said. “Don’t let this go unchecked.”
Kane urged medical freedom advocates to attend the hearing in Brooklyn.
Martinez said that support could mean a great deal to Rivicci, particularly on a day when many people who might otherwise attend will be at 9/11 memorials and ceremonies.
“If there are people who don’t have those obligations and they want to come sit in the courtroom simply so Tim can just look behind him and know that people still care, I think that would mean just a tremendous amount,” she said.
Watch the ‘Good Morning, CHD’ episode here:
Related articles in The Defender
- ‘Smoking Gun’ Emails Show New York City Officials Played Role in Firing Unvaccinated Workers
- ‘Chilling’ Decision: Judge Rules Against Firefighter Injured by COVID Vaccine After Employer Rejected Medical Exemption
- ‘The Dominoes Are Falling’: New York Supreme Court Strikes Down COVID Vaccine Mandate for NYC Public Workers
- New York Teachers Vow to Keep Fighting After Supreme Court Turns Down Religious Exemptions Case
- Two Judges Step Down From New York COVID Vaccine Mandates Lawsuit Over Financial Conflicts of Interest, Third Judge Will Stay
- Unvaccinated Teachers, Still Out of Work, File New Lawsuit Against New York City
