I doubt there's much ammo there for lawyers, as its a scenario which would be impossible to prove. As far as the indications on the CAD goes. I would assume that he had been operating on NVG and then removed them to operate over the city. One thing that has always annoyed me about the NVG switch is when switching from normal lighting to NVG lighting the CAD and VEMD displays always revert to fully dim and you have to turn the brightness up.
I know pilots do choose to remove the goggles to Relieve the neck strain. Personally I leave mine on as I think it puts you in a much better position to pick that landing site should you need it immediately. Even when operating over a city those black holes that you thought were parks and are actually factory roofs become apparent.