What is your first reaction to the title of this article? Shock? Disbelief? Skepticism? I’m sure many of you are thinking, But it’s 2025…We are 5 years out from the insanity of Covid-mania. And we have a new Administration in the White House…How on earth are you talking about “quarantine camps” now?
Well folks, the truth of the matter is that my quarantine camp lawsuit which I first started three long years ago has just reached its conclusion. The highest court in New York State, the Court of Appeals, issued its final ruling in the case…This panel of seven appointed judges is refusing to hear the case! That means the grossly erroneous intermediate appellate court’s ruling will stand, which in turn means that Governor Hochul and her dystopian New York State Department of Health are free to reissue their heinous quarantine camp regulation at will. Buckle up, New York!
This is a true travesty, not only for 19 million New Yorkers, but for all Americans. “How can that be?” you might ask. A little-known fact is that our federal government issued a quarantine camp regulation very similar to New York’s, and as far as I can tell, it was modeled on (and updated to its latest form after) New York’s! The only reporting I could find on this unbelievable fact is by Brownstone Institute founder and president, Jeffrey Tucker. His article, The CDC Planned Quarantine Camps Nationwide, tells the tale. Of course, the feds didn’t call it a “Quarantine Camp” regulation. (Nor did New York’s DOH). They always wrap the biggest lies up in candy, don’t they? The feds called it “the shielding approach,” and you can read more details about it on their website here.
Now that New York’s regulation is being left open for re-enactment, there’s no chance of using our onerous and lengthy legal battle as persuading precedence in a fight against the federal reg. In very simple terms and generally speaking, state courts do not have a binding effect on federal courts. Nor do federal courts have a binding effect on state courts, except for the United States Supreme Court.
That being said, there is such a thing called persuasive precedence. It’s when a court that is not subject to mandatory precedence considers the decision of a non-binding court even though it doesn’t have to. It’s akin to professional courtesy, but it also typically follows logic. For example, if the highest state court in Pennsylvania ruled that forced masking during Covid is illegal, it would be persuasive precedence for a state court in another state to rule accordingly. Now, this does not always happen, but it does happen often enough that it is a common stance in law.
Applying to the case at hand, after I’ve just gone through three years of costly and time-consuming litigation on New York State’s quarantine camp regulation, if I had a decision from our State’s highest court that upheld my trial court win, then that decision could have been used as persuasive precedence in a case against a different state’s (or the federal government’s) quarantine camp regulation. Something that I was considering at one point. However, that’s not how the game unfolded.
I explain…
Let’s begin with the reg itself. For those of you unfamiliar with my epic, David v. Goliath battle against New York State’s quest for ultimate control, you need to first understand what their quarantine camp regulation empowered the State to do. This excerpt from an article I wrote for the American Thinker back in June 2022 (before I won the initial lawsuit), paints a clear picture of the stunning atrocity that was the NYS “Isolation and Quarantine Procedures” regulation…
Click HERE to read the full article on the Brownstone Institute.