NEW YORK – Four New York City paramedics who said they were disciplined for speaking to the media during the heartbreaking first months of the COVID-19 pandemic have settled their free speech lawsuit against the department and the city , his union announced on Wednesday.
The four emergency medical workers, including paramedic Elizabeth Bonilla, who allowed The Associated Press to follow her during the first half of a 16-hour double shift in April 2020, will receive $29,999 each, said a spokesperson for FDNY EMS Local 2507. , the city will remove from its records any allegations that it violated department rules when communicating with the media.
The city’s legal department said in a statement that the parties have reached a fair resolution. A message left for firefighters was not immediately returned.
Bonilla, along with fellow paramedics Alexander Nunez and Megan Pfeiffer, and EMT John Rugen, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court in June 2020, alleging they were wrongfully punished for giving interviews to the media about their work on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to their union, Bonilla, Nunez and Pfeiffer were barred from treating patients, and Rugen was placed on restricted status and suspended without pay for 30 days.
“Our union has always believed that the City and FDNY case was based on nothing more than prosecutorial overzealousness,” local union president Oren Barzilay said in a statement.
Barzilay said that “with this agreement, justice is finally served, albeit a little cold after almost three years”.