NYC’s Covid Hotel Worker Severance Mandate Passes Legal Test

The owner of Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel, which closed its doors in 2020, lost its bid for a court order blocking New York City’s new $500 weekly severance mandate for hotel workers laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a federal court ruling issued Wednesday.

The severance law doesn’t obligate employers to establish employee benefit plans and thus likely isn’t preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Judge J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said. The law also doesn’t appear to interfere with federal labor law or unconstitutionally impair ...