Children's Health Defense, which first announced the development, said the ruling "is a set-back, [but] it isn’t the final decision." | Elaine Thompson/AP Photo Judge rejects request to temporarily block New York's vaccination law

ALBANY — A state judge on Friday rejected a request to temporarily block a contentious law ending New York’s religious exemption to vaccination requirements, just days before a state deadline requiring parents to immunize their children in order to remain in school or day care.

State Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey issued the ruling in response to attorneys Michael Sussman and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request for a temporary restraining order in a case challenging the constitutionality of the newly enacted vaccination law.


Mackey said “plaintiffs have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to sustain their heavy burden at this stage of the newly filed action,” or demonstrated “that a balance of equities favors them and outweighs the public interest.”

Children's Health Defense, which first announced the development, said the ruling "is a set-back, [but] it isn’t the final decision."

Sussman, an attorney with Goshen-based Sussman & Associates, added that "getting a [temporary restraining order] against state legislation is very difficult."

"The Justice set a further briefing schedule and expressed the view that if we can demonstrate the merits of our case before him or another Judge, we will have time to do so before September and the extensive irreparable harm children will then suffer," Sussman said in a statement.

Sussman said he hopes "further development of all the issues will cause this or another judge to preliminarily restrain the operation of this statute."

The ban on religious exemptions, signed into law last month, comes amid the worst measles outbreak in a generation and decades after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the disease eradicated. There are close to 1,000 measles cases in New York, largely stemming from outbreaks in Orthodox Jewish communities.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat and sponsor of the legislation, said he was “glad that science has prevailed once more and that the public health will continue to be protected while our judicial system works through this lawsuit.”

Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat and fellow bill sponsor, said he remains "confident that the law will ultimately be upheld as constitutional, consistent with over a century of federal and state jurisprudence. New Yorkers are safer as a result."

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 55 New York families who had religious vaccination exemptions, alleges that the ban violates both state and federal law and “unreasonably interferes with religious freedom.” The lawsuit also contends that the state has failed to prove a rational basis to mandate all vaccines on the state’s schedule to those who have “genuine, sincere religious beliefs against them.”

It is among several lawsuits that are expected to be filed against the vaccination law changes.

Guidance issued by the New York Department of Health in response to the new law requires children attending day care, public, private or parochial school who had a religious exemption to receive the first age appropriate immunization dose in each by June 28 and to also have scheduled appointments for all required follow-up doses by July 14.

Despite the legal challenge, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Senate and Assembly sponsors of the legislation have said they’re confident about the law’s chances in court, as it was modeled after a California law that withstood similar legal challenges.