Under what legal theory are people/businesses libel for restarting their business during the pandemic? I keep hearing some concern that somehow people could sue businesses for damages if they reopen or aren't following certain "pandemic practices."
How? If I somehow get sick after shopping for groceries a week ago how am I going to sue Kroger, even if I could trace it back to the store? Especially if I couldn't trace it very well?
I know there's warranty of fitness but I'd think business/people enterprises in the last 100 years would of had people sue them for colds or flu if they could. A couple of months ago the Houston Rodeo unexpectedly shut down. Why? Did anyone with CV19 sue them for the few days they remained open?
If one person dies as a result of (maybe) attending an NFL game does that person's estate have legal standing to sue the team, the city, the state, the stadium, etc?
- gnadfly
- 05-27-2020, 12:13 PM
- nevergaveitathought
- 05-27-2020, 12:33 PM
try this on for size:
people can and do sue for almost anything
all it takes is a willing attorney and a theory of liability
and then discovery and convincing a jury
in the face of a pandemic, and in opposition to expert advice and orders of legal authority you took it upon yourself to negligently and in disregard to employee safety reopen, forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions where 10 caught covid-19
the first person brought it in, but the rest were forced to work and in the absence of your selfish disregard they would have likely been healthy and uninfected
people can and do sue for almost anything
all it takes is a willing attorney and a theory of liability
and then discovery and convincing a jury
in the face of a pandemic, and in opposition to expert advice and orders of legal authority you took it upon yourself to negligently and in disregard to employee safety reopen, forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions where 10 caught covid-19
the first person brought it in, but the rest were forced to work and in the absence of your selfish disregard they would have likely been healthy and uninfected
- Chung Tran
- 05-27-2020, 01:09 PM
it is tricky.. this morning I saw a Client face-to-face, first time in a little more than 2 months.. there are signs all over the Office saying we are following CDC, no person-to-person visits, etc.. but.. I was the only person in the Office.. I straight up asked the Client if he wanted to sit down across from me to conduct business.. I said "it's your call".. he wore a mask, and finally gave the okay.. he didn't want me to break a rule on his behalf. but I was perfectly fine seeing him under the condition we were in.
if he ends up with Corona, I'm fucked, I guess.. I broke Company protocol.. even if I had recorded him saying, deciding himself, to do one-on-one, I think legally I'm doomed.
of course, how could he ever trace getting Corona to his visit with me today?
if he ends up with Corona, I'm fucked, I guess.. I broke Company protocol.. even if I had recorded him saying, deciding himself, to do one-on-one, I think legally I'm doomed.
of course, how could he ever trace getting Corona to his visit with me today?
- friendly fred
- 05-27-2020, 01:39 PM
it is tricky.. this morning I saw a Client face-to-face, first time in a little more than 2 months.. there are signs all over the Office saying we are following CDC, no person-to-person visits, etc.. but.. I was the only person in the Office.. I straight up asked the Client if he wanted to sit down across from me to conduct business.. I said "it's your call".. he wore a mask, and finally gave the okay.. he didn't want me to break a rule on his behalf. but I was perfectly fine seeing him under the condition we were in.If you vote for Trump the client won't sue you..trust me.
if he ends up with Corona, I'm fucked, I guess.. I broke Company protocol.. even if I had recorded him saying, deciding himself, to do one-on-one, I think legally I'm doomed.
of course, how could he ever trace getting Corona to his visit with me today? Originally Posted by Chung Tran
- gnadfly
- 05-27-2020, 02:37 PM
try this on for size:I understand my OP may be poorly worded but most people in the forum have the life experience to know this
people can and do sue for almost anything
all it takes is a willing attorney and a theory of liability
and then discovery and convincing a jury Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought
in the face of a pandemic, and in opposition to expert advice and orders of legal authority you took it upon yourself to negligently and in disregard to employee safety reopen, forcing employees to work in unsafe conditions where 10 caught covid-19There's a lot here I'd like to contest but in Texas business are opening up with the consent of the state. The question I'm concerned with is I'm watching the business channel and they're talking about businesses being liable simply "for opening and conducting business" even with "proper" safeguards in place.
the first person brought it in, but the rest were forced to work and in the absence of your selfish disregard they would have likely been healthy and uninfected Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought
Why?
it is tricky.. this morning I saw a Client face-to-face, first time in a little more than 2 months.. there are signs all over the Office saying we are following CDC, no person-to-person visits, etc.. but.. I was the only person in the Office.. I straight up asked the Client if he wanted to sit down across from me to conduct business.. I said "it's your call".. he wore a mask, and finally gave the okay.. he didn't want me to break a rule on his behalf. but I was perfectly fine seeing him under the condition we were in.To some extent this better characterizes my question but not perfectly. If someone volunteers to do business on physical premises in front of a live human with "proper precautions" and ends up getting CV19 what's the legal grounds to sue?
if he ends up with Corona, I'm fucked, I guess.. I broke Company protocol.. even if I had recorded him saying, deciding himself, to do one-on-one, I think legally I'm doomed.
of course, how could he ever trace getting Corona to his visit with me today? Originally Posted by Chung Tran
For example, at the gym today, almost nobody is wearing masks and gloves. Some employees are still wiping down machines but not nearly the rate. What if I get covid19? Will I be able to sue the gym successfully? Some people on the business channels would say "yes" they should not have opened until a vaccine or cure is found.
- gnadfly
- 05-27-2020, 03:41 PM
Various entities are asking for "indemnity." I can see why in the case of the NY nursing homes that were forced to take COVID patients but other entities such as stadiums and airlines are asking for it now.
- Levianon17
- 05-27-2020, 05:46 PM
it is tricky.. this morning I saw a Client face-to-face, first time in a little more than 2 months.. there are signs all over the Office saying we are following CDC, no person-to-person visits, etc.. but.. I was the only person in the Office.. I straight up asked the Client if he wanted to sit down across from me to conduct business.. I said "it's your call".. he wore a mask, and finally gave the okay.. he didn't want me to break a rule on his behalf. but I was perfectly fine seeing him under the condition we were in.
if he ends up with Corona, I'm fucked, I guess.. I broke Company protocol.. even if I had recorded him saying, deciding himself, to do one-on-one, I think legally I'm doomed.
of course, how could he ever trace getting Corona to his visit with me today? Originally Posted by Chung Tran
He can't. So don't worry about it. Besides he walked into your office on his own accord.
- HedonistForever
- 05-27-2020, 07:34 PM
Have no fear Congress is working on it right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/businesses-coronavirus-liability.html
Businesses Seek Sweeping Shield From Pandemic Liability Before They Reopen
A new legal and political front is coming into view as the nation starts to ease public health limits that have crippled the economy: Will business owners fear lawsuits and stay closed anyway?
Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from Covid-19.
Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing.
The biggest push, business groups say, is to give companies enhanced protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection.
The effort highlights a core tension as the economy begins to reopen: how to give businesses the confidence they need to restart operations amid swirling uncertainty over the virus and its effects, while also protecting workers and customers from unsafe practices that could raise the chances of infection.
Administration officials have said they are examining how they could create some of those shields via regulation or executive order. But lobbyists and lawmakers agree that the most consequential changes would need to come from Congress — where the effort has run into partisan divisions that could complicate lawmakers’ ability to pass another stimulus package.
Republicans are pushing for the liability limitations as a way of stopping what they say are overzealous trial lawyers and giving business owners the certainty they need to reopen. Democratic leaders say they oppose any moves to undermine worker protections.
Leaders of labor unions say limiting business liability will reward companies that are not taking adequate steps to ensure the safety of their workers and consumers.
In announcing that the Senate will return on May 4, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Monday there was an “urgent need” to enact legislation to shield businesses from pandemic-related legal liability if they reopen, citing the risk of “years of endless lawsuits” arising from “a massive tangle of federal and state laws.”
“The trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after health care providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Monday on Fox News Radio.
Mr. McConnell suggested that the liability issue would need to be resolved before Congress provided any additional financial relief to states, teeing up a big fight over the next aid package. Negotiations on that bill will heat up next week, with Democrats pushing for hundreds of billions of dollars to help state and local governments fill a crisis-induced shortfall in tax revenues. They are also seeking aid for the United States Postal Service and federal “hazard pay” for workers on the front lines of the pandemic.
Mr. McConnell indicated Republicans would require a trade-off and that Democrats would have to bend on liability protections for business in order to get more stimulus aid. “So before we start sending additional money down to states and localities, I want to make sure that we protect the people we’ve already sent assistance to, who are going to be set up for an avalanche of lawsuits if we don’t act,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, rejected Mr. McConnell’s call. “I don’t think that at this time, with coronavirus, that there’s any interest in having any less protection for our workers,” Ms. Pelosi said on Tuesday.
Business groups say they have been stressing to lawmakers that the liability limits would be temporary and contained to the crisis.
“As long as we are not overreaching in what we’re asking for, and we’re being thoughtful and measured, there’s a real chance we can get these protections for our members,” said Linda Kelly, the general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, which is pushing lawmakers to make a targeted set of changes in the next economic rescue package.
“We have some work to do with Democrats,” Ms. Kelly said. “I don’t think we can do it without that support.”
The manufacturers’ proposals include raising the legal bar for customers or employees to prove a business is at fault if they claim they contracted the virus there, protecting employers from some privacy suits in the event that they disclose a worker’s infection to other workers for safety reasons and giving added legal protections to companies that manufacture items during the crisis that are new to them — like personal protective equipment. Congress included a version of that liability limitation for manufacturers of masks in the rescue bill it passed last month.
A longer list circulated two weeks ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce includes some things the administration could do on its own — like Labor Department guidance about mask requirements and the steps it will deem sufficient to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Others include steps only Congress could enact, like passing a law taking away people’s right to file lawsuits in state courts over allegations that a business was negligent in taking pandemic precautions. A range of legal specialists in civil lawsuits over claimed injuries and labor law said the business lobby’s requests include both sensible ideas that could be put in place quickly and politically implausible stretches. The risk, they said, is that if the lobby asks for too much, it could get bogged down, forestalling the changes needed for the eventual recovery.
New York University Law School professor of labor and employment law, argued that it would make sense for the Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue guidance about basic safety steps businesses should follow.
For example, he said, it would be useful to promulgate guidance that, if a business requires its workers and customers to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent practicable, it would have a “safe harbor” from being considered by the federal government to be negligent — a standard that could also discourage state-court lawsuits. He also said it made sense to tell businesses they could require employees to pass a test for the virus before returning to work without running afoul of disability discrimination and health privacy laws.
But the chamber’s list, he says, goes far beyond that, ranging from tiny issues — like wanting to relieve employers from a need to provide masks or train employers in how to properly use them — to gutting hard-fought labor laws in ways that seem unjustified, like permitting employers to bar older workers from returning to work based on fears that they may be statistically more vulnerable to serious symptoms.
“This is a wish list for mini constituencies within the business community,” he said. “They should be focusing on what they need for immediately addressing legitimate concerns, so we can go back to work.”
Labor leaders reject the effort entirely. Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, said employers were still sometimes failing to provide personal protective equipment to workers, and she called the liability-limitation push “inhumane.”
“This is a discussion from corporations and employers that are shirking their employees on the front lines of the pandemic,” Ms. Henry said. “They’re now going to try, as they infect people, to shirk any legal responsibility for it?”
Complicating matters, most workplace safety is regulated at the state level — though there are some federal laws on employment issues, including imposing a duty on employers to have safe workplaces. Each state has its own workers’ compensation system for people who are injured at work, and lawsuits by customers who accuse a business of negligence are generally brought in state courts under a patchwork of standards.
But workers’ compensation systems are geared at physical injuries, like a construction worker injured in a crane accident. While businesses would surely argue in court that getting sick from the pandemic should also be handled as a worker’s compensation claim instead of with a personal-injury lawsuit, plaintiff’s lawyers can argue that exposure to a pathogen in a workplace falls outside of that system and so they should be permitted to sue for damages — setting up costly and daunting litigation.
In theory, Congress could set uniform federal standards and take away the right to file lawsuits in state courts, said John Goldberg, a Harvard law professor who specializes in torts, or the law of civil wrongs and injuries. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and restarting a national economy wrecked by a national pandemic would probably qualify.
“Saying we’re doing this to restart a national economy that has basically collapsed — it would be pretty hard to say that isn’t directly related to interstate commerce,” he said.
But what Congress could do and what it is politically likely to do are two different things. Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber, said he hoped lawmakers would act within a few weeks to hasten reopenings.
“As long as this is hanging out there,” Mr. Bradley said, “this is just one more threat to the business.”
Mr. Goldberg said the chamber may be overestimating the legal risks even under current law. He said that plaintiff’s lawyers would be reluctant to take on a case where there was not clear evidence that a person got sick at a particular business — something that will be hard to prove for a virus that has a weekslong incubation period.
“Under current law plaintiffs have to prove the target was negligent,” and proof of causation “is going to be daunting if not impossible,” he said, adding: “You never say ‘never’ in the world of liability, but the idea this is a looming tidal wave of lawsuits that are going to succeed seems to me overstated.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/businesses-coronavirus-liability.html
Businesses Seek Sweeping Shield From Pandemic Liability Before They Reopen
A new legal and political front is coming into view as the nation starts to ease public health limits that have crippled the economy: Will business owners fear lawsuits and stay closed anyway?
Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from Covid-19.
Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing.
The biggest push, business groups say, is to give companies enhanced protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection.
The effort highlights a core tension as the economy begins to reopen: how to give businesses the confidence they need to restart operations amid swirling uncertainty over the virus and its effects, while also protecting workers and customers from unsafe practices that could raise the chances of infection.
Administration officials have said they are examining how they could create some of those shields via regulation or executive order. But lobbyists and lawmakers agree that the most consequential changes would need to come from Congress — where the effort has run into partisan divisions that could complicate lawmakers’ ability to pass another stimulus package.
Republicans are pushing for the liability limitations as a way of stopping what they say are overzealous trial lawyers and giving business owners the certainty they need to reopen. Democratic leaders say they oppose any moves to undermine worker protections.
Leaders of labor unions say limiting business liability will reward companies that are not taking adequate steps to ensure the safety of their workers and consumers.
In announcing that the Senate will return on May 4, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Monday there was an “urgent need” to enact legislation to shield businesses from pandemic-related legal liability if they reopen, citing the risk of “years of endless lawsuits” arising from “a massive tangle of federal and state laws.”
“The trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after health care providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Monday on Fox News Radio.
Mr. McConnell suggested that the liability issue would need to be resolved before Congress provided any additional financial relief to states, teeing up a big fight over the next aid package. Negotiations on that bill will heat up next week, with Democrats pushing for hundreds of billions of dollars to help state and local governments fill a crisis-induced shortfall in tax revenues. They are also seeking aid for the United States Postal Service and federal “hazard pay” for workers on the front lines of the pandemic.
Mr. McConnell indicated Republicans would require a trade-off and that Democrats would have to bend on liability protections for business in order to get more stimulus aid. “So before we start sending additional money down to states and localities, I want to make sure that we protect the people we’ve already sent assistance to, who are going to be set up for an avalanche of lawsuits if we don’t act,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, rejected Mr. McConnell’s call. “I don’t think that at this time, with coronavirus, that there’s any interest in having any less protection for our workers,” Ms. Pelosi said on Tuesday.
Business groups say they have been stressing to lawmakers that the liability limits would be temporary and contained to the crisis.
“As long as we are not overreaching in what we’re asking for, and we’re being thoughtful and measured, there’s a real chance we can get these protections for our members,” said Linda Kelly, the general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, which is pushing lawmakers to make a targeted set of changes in the next economic rescue package.
“We have some work to do with Democrats,” Ms. Kelly said. “I don’t think we can do it without that support.”
The manufacturers’ proposals include raising the legal bar for customers or employees to prove a business is at fault if they claim they contracted the virus there, protecting employers from some privacy suits in the event that they disclose a worker’s infection to other workers for safety reasons and giving added legal protections to companies that manufacture items during the crisis that are new to them — like personal protective equipment. Congress included a version of that liability limitation for manufacturers of masks in the rescue bill it passed last month.
A longer list circulated two weeks ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce includes some things the administration could do on its own — like Labor Department guidance about mask requirements and the steps it will deem sufficient to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Others include steps only Congress could enact, like passing a law taking away people’s right to file lawsuits in state courts over allegations that a business was negligent in taking pandemic precautions. A range of legal specialists in civil lawsuits over claimed injuries and labor law said the business lobby’s requests include both sensible ideas that could be put in place quickly and politically implausible stretches. The risk, they said, is that if the lobby asks for too much, it could get bogged down, forestalling the changes needed for the eventual recovery.
New York University Law School professor of labor and employment law, argued that it would make sense for the Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue guidance about basic safety steps businesses should follow.
For example, he said, it would be useful to promulgate guidance that, if a business requires its workers and customers to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent practicable, it would have a “safe harbor” from being considered by the federal government to be negligent — a standard that could also discourage state-court lawsuits. He also said it made sense to tell businesses they could require employees to pass a test for the virus before returning to work without running afoul of disability discrimination and health privacy laws.
But the chamber’s list, he says, goes far beyond that, ranging from tiny issues — like wanting to relieve employers from a need to provide masks or train employers in how to properly use them — to gutting hard-fought labor laws in ways that seem unjustified, like permitting employers to bar older workers from returning to work based on fears that they may be statistically more vulnerable to serious symptoms.
“This is a wish list for mini constituencies within the business community,” he said. “They should be focusing on what they need for immediately addressing legitimate concerns, so we can go back to work.”
Labor leaders reject the effort entirely. Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, said employers were still sometimes failing to provide personal protective equipment to workers, and she called the liability-limitation push “inhumane.”
“This is a discussion from corporations and employers that are shirking their employees on the front lines of the pandemic,” Ms. Henry said. “They’re now going to try, as they infect people, to shirk any legal responsibility for it?”
Complicating matters, most workplace safety is regulated at the state level — though there are some federal laws on employment issues, including imposing a duty on employers to have safe workplaces. Each state has its own workers’ compensation system for people who are injured at work, and lawsuits by customers who accuse a business of negligence are generally brought in state courts under a patchwork of standards.
But workers’ compensation systems are geared at physical injuries, like a construction worker injured in a crane accident. While businesses would surely argue in court that getting sick from the pandemic should also be handled as a worker’s compensation claim instead of with a personal-injury lawsuit, plaintiff’s lawyers can argue that exposure to a pathogen in a workplace falls outside of that system and so they should be permitted to sue for damages — setting up costly and daunting litigation.
In theory, Congress could set uniform federal standards and take away the right to file lawsuits in state courts, said John Goldberg, a Harvard law professor who specializes in torts, or the law of civil wrongs and injuries. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and restarting a national economy wrecked by a national pandemic would probably qualify.
“Saying we’re doing this to restart a national economy that has basically collapsed — it would be pretty hard to say that isn’t directly related to interstate commerce,” he said.
But what Congress could do and what it is politically likely to do are two different things. Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber, said he hoped lawmakers would act within a few weeks to hasten reopenings.
“As long as this is hanging out there,” Mr. Bradley said, “this is just one more threat to the business.”
Mr. Goldberg said the chamber may be overestimating the legal risks even under current law. He said that plaintiff’s lawyers would be reluctant to take on a case where there was not clear evidence that a person got sick at a particular business — something that will be hard to prove for a virus that has a weekslong incubation period.
“Under current law plaintiffs have to prove the target was negligent,” and proof of causation “is going to be daunting if not impossible,” he said, adding: “You never say ‘never’ in the world of liability, but the idea this is a looming tidal wave of lawsuits that are going to succeed seems to me overstated.”
- HedonistForever
- 05-27-2020, 07:34 PM
Have no fear Congress is working on it right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/businesses-coronavirus-liability.html
Businesses Seek Sweeping Shield From Pandemic Liability Before They Reopen
A new legal and political front is coming into view as the nation starts to ease public health limits that have crippled the economy: Will business owners fear lawsuits and stay closed anyway?
Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from Covid-19.
Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing.
The biggest push, business groups say, is to give companies enhanced protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection.
The effort highlights a core tension as the economy begins to reopen: how to give businesses the confidence they need to restart operations amid swirling uncertainty over the virus and its effects, while also protecting workers and customers from unsafe practices that could raise the chances of infection.
Administration officials have said they are examining how they could create some of those shields via regulation or executive order. But lobbyists and lawmakers agree that the most consequential changes would need to come from Congress — where the effort has run into partisan divisions that could complicate lawmakers’ ability to pass another stimulus package.
Republicans are pushing for the liability limitations as a way of stopping what they say are overzealous trial lawyers and giving business owners the certainty they need to reopen. Democratic leaders say they oppose any moves to undermine worker protections.
Leaders of labor unions say limiting business liability will reward companies that are not taking adequate steps to ensure the safety of their workers and consumers.
In announcing that the Senate will return on May 4, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Monday there was an “urgent need” to enact legislation to shield businesses from pandemic-related legal liability if they reopen, citing the risk of “years of endless lawsuits” arising from “a massive tangle of federal and state laws.”
“The trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after health care providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Monday on Fox News Radio.
Mr. McConnell suggested that the liability issue would need to be resolved before Congress provided any additional financial relief to states, teeing up a big fight over the next aid package. Negotiations on that bill will heat up next week, with Democrats pushing for hundreds of billions of dollars to help state and local governments fill a crisis-induced shortfall in tax revenues. They are also seeking aid for the United States Postal Service and federal “hazard pay” for workers on the front lines of the pandemic.
Mr. McConnell indicated Republicans would require a trade-off and that Democrats would have to bend on liability protections for business in order to get more stimulus aid. “So before we start sending additional money down to states and localities, I want to make sure that we protect the people we’ve already sent assistance to, who are going to be set up for an avalanche of lawsuits if we don’t act,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, rejected Mr. McConnell’s call. “I don’t think that at this time, with coronavirus, that there’s any interest in having any less protection for our workers,” Ms. Pelosi said on Tuesday.
Business groups say they have been stressing to lawmakers that the liability limits would be temporary and contained to the crisis.
“As long as we are not overreaching in what we’re asking for, and we’re being thoughtful and measured, there’s a real chance we can get these protections for our members,” said Linda Kelly, the general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, which is pushing lawmakers to make a targeted set of changes in the next economic rescue package.
“We have some work to do with Democrats,” Ms. Kelly said. “I don’t think we can do it without that support.”
The manufacturers’ proposals include raising the legal bar for customers or employees to prove a business is at fault if they claim they contracted the virus there, protecting employers from some privacy suits in the event that they disclose a worker’s infection to other workers for safety reasons and giving added legal protections to companies that manufacture items during the crisis that are new to them — like personal protective equipment. Congress included a version of that liability limitation for manufacturers of masks in the rescue bill it passed last month.
A longer list circulated two weeks ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce includes some things the administration could do on its own — like Labor Department guidance about mask requirements and the steps it will deem sufficient to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Others include steps only Congress could enact, like passing a law taking away people’s right to file lawsuits in state courts over allegations that a business was negligent in taking pandemic precautions. A range of legal specialists in civil lawsuits over claimed injuries and labor law said the business lobby’s requests include both sensible ideas that could be put in place quickly and politically implausible stretches. The risk, they said, is that if the lobby asks for too much, it could get bogged down, forestalling the changes needed for the eventual recovery.
New York University Law School professor of labor and employment law, argued that it would make sense for the Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue guidance about basic safety steps businesses should follow.
For example, he said, it would be useful to promulgate guidance that, if a business requires its workers and customers to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent practicable, it would have a “safe harbor” from being considered by the federal government to be negligent — a standard that could also discourage state-court lawsuits. He also said it made sense to tell businesses they could require employees to pass a test for the virus before returning to work without running afoul of disability discrimination and health privacy laws.
But the chamber’s list, he says, goes far beyond that, ranging from tiny issues — like wanting to relieve employers from a need to provide masks or train employers in how to properly use them — to gutting hard-fought labor laws in ways that seem unjustified, like permitting employers to bar older workers from returning to work based on fears that they may be statistically more vulnerable to serious symptoms.
“This is a wish list for mini constituencies within the business community,” he said. “They should be focusing on what they need for immediately addressing legitimate concerns, so we can go back to work.”
Labor leaders reject the effort entirely. Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, said employers were still sometimes failing to provide personal protective equipment to workers, and she called the liability-limitation push “inhumane.”
“This is a discussion from corporations and employers that are shirking their employees on the front lines of the pandemic,” Ms. Henry said. “They’re now going to try, as they infect people, to shirk any legal responsibility for it?”
Complicating matters, most workplace safety is regulated at the state level — though there are some federal laws on employment issues, including imposing a duty on employers to have safe workplaces. Each state has its own workers’ compensation system for people who are injured at work, and lawsuits by customers who accuse a business of negligence are generally brought in state courts under a patchwork of standards.
But workers’ compensation systems are geared at physical injuries, like a construction worker injured in a crane accident. While businesses would surely argue in court that getting sick from the pandemic should also be handled as a worker’s compensation claim instead of with a personal-injury lawsuit, plaintiff’s lawyers can argue that exposure to a pathogen in a workplace falls outside of that system and so they should be permitted to sue for damages — setting up costly and daunting litigation.
In theory, Congress could set uniform federal standards and take away the right to file lawsuits in state courts, said John Goldberg, a Harvard law professor who specializes in torts, or the law of civil wrongs and injuries. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and restarting a national economy wrecked by a national pandemic would probably qualify.
“Saying we’re doing this to restart a national economy that has basically collapsed — it would be pretty hard to say that isn’t directly related to interstate commerce,” he said.
But what Congress could do and what it is politically likely to do are two different things. Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber, said he hoped lawmakers would act within a few weeks to hasten reopenings.
“As long as this is hanging out there,” Mr. Bradley said, “this is just one more threat to the business.”
Mr. Goldberg said the chamber may be overestimating the legal risks even under current law. He said that plaintiff’s lawyers would be reluctant to take on a case where there was not clear evidence that a person got sick at a particular business — something that will be hard to prove for a virus that has a weekslong incubation period.
“Under current law plaintiffs have to prove the target was negligent,” and proof of causation “is going to be daunting if not impossible,” he said, adding: “You never say ‘never’ in the world of liability, but the idea this is a looming tidal wave of lawsuits that are going to succeed seems to me overstated.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/businesses-coronavirus-liability.html
Businesses Seek Sweeping Shield From Pandemic Liability Before They Reopen
A new legal and political front is coming into view as the nation starts to ease public health limits that have crippled the economy: Will business owners fear lawsuits and stay closed anyway?
Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from Covid-19.
Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing.
The biggest push, business groups say, is to give companies enhanced protection against lawsuits by customers or employees who contract the virus and accuse the business of being the source of the infection.
The effort highlights a core tension as the economy begins to reopen: how to give businesses the confidence they need to restart operations amid swirling uncertainty over the virus and its effects, while also protecting workers and customers from unsafe practices that could raise the chances of infection.
Administration officials have said they are examining how they could create some of those shields via regulation or executive order. But lobbyists and lawmakers agree that the most consequential changes would need to come from Congress — where the effort has run into partisan divisions that could complicate lawmakers’ ability to pass another stimulus package.
Republicans are pushing for the liability limitations as a way of stopping what they say are overzealous trial lawyers and giving business owners the certainty they need to reopen. Democratic leaders say they oppose any moves to undermine worker protections.
Leaders of labor unions say limiting business liability will reward companies that are not taking adequate steps to ensure the safety of their workers and consumers.
In announcing that the Senate will return on May 4, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Monday there was an “urgent need” to enact legislation to shield businesses from pandemic-related legal liability if they reopen, citing the risk of “years of endless lawsuits” arising from “a massive tangle of federal and state laws.”
“The trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after health care providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview on Monday on Fox News Radio.
Mr. McConnell suggested that the liability issue would need to be resolved before Congress provided any additional financial relief to states, teeing up a big fight over the next aid package. Negotiations on that bill will heat up next week, with Democrats pushing for hundreds of billions of dollars to help state and local governments fill a crisis-induced shortfall in tax revenues. They are also seeking aid for the United States Postal Service and federal “hazard pay” for workers on the front lines of the pandemic.
Mr. McConnell indicated Republicans would require a trade-off and that Democrats would have to bend on liability protections for business in order to get more stimulus aid. “So before we start sending additional money down to states and localities, I want to make sure that we protect the people we’ve already sent assistance to, who are going to be set up for an avalanche of lawsuits if we don’t act,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, rejected Mr. McConnell’s call. “I don’t think that at this time, with coronavirus, that there’s any interest in having any less protection for our workers,” Ms. Pelosi said on Tuesday.
Business groups say they have been stressing to lawmakers that the liability limits would be temporary and contained to the crisis.
“As long as we are not overreaching in what we’re asking for, and we’re being thoughtful and measured, there’s a real chance we can get these protections for our members,” said Linda Kelly, the general counsel for the National Association of Manufacturers, which is pushing lawmakers to make a targeted set of changes in the next economic rescue package.
“We have some work to do with Democrats,” Ms. Kelly said. “I don’t think we can do it without that support.”
The manufacturers’ proposals include raising the legal bar for customers or employees to prove a business is at fault if they claim they contracted the virus there, protecting employers from some privacy suits in the event that they disclose a worker’s infection to other workers for safety reasons and giving added legal protections to companies that manufacture items during the crisis that are new to them — like personal protective equipment. Congress included a version of that liability limitation for manufacturers of masks in the rescue bill it passed last month.
A longer list circulated two weeks ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce includes some things the administration could do on its own — like Labor Department guidance about mask requirements and the steps it will deem sufficient to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Others include steps only Congress could enact, like passing a law taking away people’s right to file lawsuits in state courts over allegations that a business was negligent in taking pandemic precautions. A range of legal specialists in civil lawsuits over claimed injuries and labor law said the business lobby’s requests include both sensible ideas that could be put in place quickly and politically implausible stretches. The risk, they said, is that if the lobby asks for too much, it could get bogged down, forestalling the changes needed for the eventual recovery.
New York University Law School professor of labor and employment law, argued that it would make sense for the Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to issue guidance about basic safety steps businesses should follow.
For example, he said, it would be useful to promulgate guidance that, if a business requires its workers and customers to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent practicable, it would have a “safe harbor” from being considered by the federal government to be negligent — a standard that could also discourage state-court lawsuits. He also said it made sense to tell businesses they could require employees to pass a test for the virus before returning to work without running afoul of disability discrimination and health privacy laws.
But the chamber’s list, he says, goes far beyond that, ranging from tiny issues — like wanting to relieve employers from a need to provide masks or train employers in how to properly use them — to gutting hard-fought labor laws in ways that seem unjustified, like permitting employers to bar older workers from returning to work based on fears that they may be statistically more vulnerable to serious symptoms.
“This is a wish list for mini constituencies within the business community,” he said. “They should be focusing on what they need for immediately addressing legitimate concerns, so we can go back to work.”
Labor leaders reject the effort entirely. Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, said employers were still sometimes failing to provide personal protective equipment to workers, and she called the liability-limitation push “inhumane.”
“This is a discussion from corporations and employers that are shirking their employees on the front lines of the pandemic,” Ms. Henry said. “They’re now going to try, as they infect people, to shirk any legal responsibility for it?”
Complicating matters, most workplace safety is regulated at the state level — though there are some federal laws on employment issues, including imposing a duty on employers to have safe workplaces. Each state has its own workers’ compensation system for people who are injured at work, and lawsuits by customers who accuse a business of negligence are generally brought in state courts under a patchwork of standards.
But workers’ compensation systems are geared at physical injuries, like a construction worker injured in a crane accident. While businesses would surely argue in court that getting sick from the pandemic should also be handled as a worker’s compensation claim instead of with a personal-injury lawsuit, plaintiff’s lawyers can argue that exposure to a pathogen in a workplace falls outside of that system and so they should be permitted to sue for damages — setting up costly and daunting litigation.
In theory, Congress could set uniform federal standards and take away the right to file lawsuits in state courts, said John Goldberg, a Harvard law professor who specializes in torts, or the law of civil wrongs and injuries. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and restarting a national economy wrecked by a national pandemic would probably qualify.
“Saying we’re doing this to restart a national economy that has basically collapsed — it would be pretty hard to say that isn’t directly related to interstate commerce,” he said.
But what Congress could do and what it is politically likely to do are two different things. Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber, said he hoped lawmakers would act within a few weeks to hasten reopenings.
“As long as this is hanging out there,” Mr. Bradley said, “this is just one more threat to the business.”
Mr. Goldberg said the chamber may be overestimating the legal risks even under current law. He said that plaintiff’s lawyers would be reluctant to take on a case where there was not clear evidence that a person got sick at a particular business — something that will be hard to prove for a virus that has a weekslong incubation period.
“Under current law plaintiffs have to prove the target was negligent,” and proof of causation “is going to be daunting if not impossible,” he said, adding: “You never say ‘never’ in the world of liability, but the idea this is a looming tidal wave of lawsuits that are going to succeed seems to me overstated.”
- dilbert firestorm
- 05-27-2020, 08:43 PM
those panicky, risk adverse, bleeding heart liberals are largely responsible for the lawsuit happy culture that we have in this country.
- LexusLover
- 05-28-2020, 05:13 AM
"Bad facts make bad law!"
Congress has facilitated the opening of businesses with taxpayer dollars and is now going to protect those businesses from liability to the taxpayers for the spread of a "deadly" virus facilitated by Congress?
Gnad the "legal theory" is founded upon the notion that the government is supposed to protect people from their own behavior. The working-earning class who pay the taxes to create jobs for people who cannot compete in the free-enterprise system in this country have to provide protection to the folks who receive government checks to spend at the businesses from which they now seek to collect a windfall.
Congress has facilitated the opening of businesses with taxpayer dollars and is now going to protect those businesses from liability to the taxpayers for the spread of a "deadly" virus facilitated by Congress?
Gnad the "legal theory" is founded upon the notion that the government is supposed to protect people from their own behavior. The working-earning class who pay the taxes to create jobs for people who cannot compete in the free-enterprise system in this country have to provide protection to the folks who receive government checks to spend at the businesses from which they now seek to collect a windfall.
- LexusLover
- 05-28-2020, 05:14 AM
Eccie sucks today .... double posting .... because of delays posting ...
Gnad, in all seriousness: #1: suing someone costs filing and service fees plus the cost of electronic filing, so there is not much of a deterrent at the level of "can someone file a suit." #2: There are rules with respect to frivolous lawsuits with high standards in Texas (meaning a heavy burden to prove it was actually "frivolous" as defined by the rules and case law interpretation. #3: There are "defenses" to tort actions (which that would be) like "assumption of risk" (unfortunately "stupidity" is not a defense so far).
IMO the greatest hurdle in your scenario would be for the trial attorney to prove that the "virus" came from the business, as opposed to some other source DAYS or WEEKS ago. In the old days before blood testing and DNA proving an offspring was the result of sex from one of the guys she'd been fucking was compared to a band saw blade tooth .... which one cut the grain. This virus claim smells the same.
Gnad, in all seriousness: #1: suing someone costs filing and service fees plus the cost of electronic filing, so there is not much of a deterrent at the level of "can someone file a suit." #2: There are rules with respect to frivolous lawsuits with high standards in Texas (meaning a heavy burden to prove it was actually "frivolous" as defined by the rules and case law interpretation. #3: There are "defenses" to tort actions (which that would be) like "assumption of risk" (unfortunately "stupidity" is not a defense so far).
IMO the greatest hurdle in your scenario would be for the trial attorney to prove that the "virus" came from the business, as opposed to some other source DAYS or WEEKS ago. In the old days before blood testing and DNA proving an offspring was the result of sex from one of the guys she'd been fucking was compared to a band saw blade tooth .... which one cut the grain. This virus claim smells the same.
- friendly fred
- 05-29-2020, 12:41 PM
The legal theory is that this country is full of entitled assholes who think any inconvenience or chance bad event is an opportunity to cash in and be a bigger asshole.
Our courts are full of pussies who allow bullshit cases to have a free shot at a jackpot.
Our courts are full of pussies who allow bullshit cases to have a free shot at a jackpot.
- dilbert firestorm
- 05-30-2020, 06:00 AM
The legal theory is that this country is full of entitled assholes who think any inconvenience or chance bad event is an opportunity to cash in and be a bigger asshole.
Our courts are full of pussies who allow bullshit cases to have a free shot at a jackpot. Originally Posted by friendly fred
pussies and wussies.