LYNN — The City of Lynn filed an emergency motion in Essex Superior Court last Friday, which seeks to prohibit Liberty Tax Service from operating in a way that puts employees and the public at risk of contracting COVID-19.
The business, located at 175 Lewis St., had a practice of confiscating face masks upon entry and prohibiting customers from wearing them in the office.
A hearing on the preliminary injunction filed by the City occured in Lawrence Superior Court via Zoom on Wednesday afternoon but the judge, Salim Rodriguez Tabit, issued an order on Thursday night that an in-person hearing would take place on Monday, May 3 at 10 a.m. because it was difficult to hear Liberty Tax Service owner Adriana Murrell-Rosario’s attorney over Zoom.
Tabit said the court had to repeatedly ask the lawyer to speak up or repeat what he was saying and began receiving complaints about the public’s inability to hear Murrell-Rosario’s attorney, so the court decided to schedule an in-person hearing.
The Lynn Board of Health issued a cease and desist letter on March 18 declaring the continued operation a public health nuisance. Liberty Tax Service appealed it, arguing that face masks pose a greater danger to the public than COVID-19 — because, according to Murrell-Rosario, masks can spread diseases such as HIV. Murrell-Rosario previously stated she would not allow them in her business.
The Board denied the appeal and authorized a civil complaint if Murrell-Rosario continued to operate. Then, on April 8, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) issued a citation for violating workplace safety regulations and disregarding COVID-19 safety protocols.
The Lynn Police Department visited the location on April 14 and observed the business was operating in violation of the cease-and-desist order.
The suit filed in Superior Court last Friday sought enforcement of the Board of Health’s cease-and-desist order, saying Liberty Tax Service is operating in a way that poses an imminent health threat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city’s attorney, James Wellock, is handling this matter and said it is the city’s policy to not comment on pending litigation.
In the suit, the city states that Liberty Tax Service insists on holding gatherings of people inside the office without taking any COVID-19 precautions like social distancing, wearing face masks and implementing any sort of air filtration or circulation.
The Liberty Tax Service has a “No Masks Allowed” sign on the front door, and the city stated in the suit that the business has received numerous complaints from members of the public visiting this establishment, saying they felt they were deliberately put in danger by Murrell-Rosario.
Murrell-Rosario disagreed, saying her business is safe and that she knows this because none of her employees have contracted COVID-19, nor have there been any cases traced back to her business.
“The city is going to run into some really big legal issues here on filing a cease-and-desist,” Murrell-Rosario said. “The issue that we raised in our opposition motion, my attorney and I, is one of federal preemption. In other words, where Congress has created federal legislation to regulate private workplaces, the state is precluded from doing so.”
Murrell-Rosario said she follows the federal standards on workplace safety. In her opposition motion, she also noted that, because the state and the Lynn Board of Health made a referral to the federal arm of OSHA regarding her workplace, Murrell-Rosario said the citation issued put the case under federal jurisdiction.
“If my workplace was in imminent danger, OSHA has the statutory authority to seek injunctive relief (restraining a party from doing certain acts or requiring a party to act in a certain way) in federal district court, but it chose not to do so.”
The city said in the suit that the establishment has received multiple warning fines totaling about $1,400 as well as multiple visits from the Lynn Police informing Murrell-Rosario of the face mask mandate and COVID-19 workplace safety regulations — both of which Murrell-Rosario said do not apply.
The city said Murrell-Rosario’s establishment has “not made any changes to its operation and continues to operate in a willfully non-compliant manner.”
The city also said the business received ample time and opportunities to comply with public health directives.
Murrell-Rosario said she is not worried about the suit; the franchise-owner said she is following federal standards and is merely protecting her workers’ health and safety.
Allysha Dunnigan can be reached at [email protected]
