Can I Sue if I Get the Coronavirus?

What is the Coronavirus?

What you may be surprised to know is that there have long been coronaviruses circulating that can affect humans and other animals. These more common strands of the virus generally only cause a mild illness that is similar to the common cold. However, the novel coronavirus or COVID-19, is the current strand that is going around was not previously seen in humans prior to the initial cases in Wuhan.

It is incredibly important that you protect yourself by following the guidelines provided by the CDC. This will help you to minimize your risk, which is especially important if you fall into the “high risk” category. People who are older or have a compromised immune system can potentially be at risk for very serious or even deadly complications from this illness.

Legal Obligations of Corporations

Companies are currently releasing statements about how they are working hard to minimize the risks of their employees and customers contracting this disease. Employees in the United States are protected from hazards in the workplace thanks to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act). What this means is that if an employee contracts the coronavirus in the workplace, there may be situations where the employer will face fines due to negligence.

Employers who fail to have proper communicable-illness response plans and policies in place can be exposed to a wide range of repercussions. For instance, if the employer is unprepared for this type of situation, they may be exposed to a wide variety of lawsuit types including discrimination, invasion of privacy, negligence, unfair labor practices, and workers’ compensation. It’s the responsibility of the employer to pay attention to their preparedness plan in case an emergency does come up. This includes creating a plan about restrictions coming into work.

But what about the corporation’s expectations of the safety of their customer? One could argue that the victims are entitled to the same rights as if they were injured any other way when visiting a business or other location. There are currently ongoing lawsuits that may help better answer this question.

Lawsuits Currently in Place

Right now there is a lawsuit going on against passengers and the Grand Princess ocean liner, suing them for over $1 million on the basis that they put their company profits over the safety of the passengers as well as being negligent for not having a proper screening process in place. They also allege that they suffered emotional distress and trauma due to potential exposure to the virus.

Here is some background to this lawsuit. The Grand Princess ocean liner docked on March 9, 2020, in Oakland, California. This was to allow for the 2,400 passengers to be able to disembark and head to quarantine and/or medical sites as needed. As it turns out from initial testing, there were at least 19 crew members and 2 passengers that tested positive on the trip. However, it’s also important to know that out of the 3,533 people on the ship only 46 of them were tested. These were individuals that were linked to previous voyages crews and passengers.

This ship was also previously linked to 12 cases of the coronavirus from an earlier trip to Mexico. The couple who is pursuing this lawsuit boarded the ship on its initial journey on February 21, 2020, and were passengers when they filed this lawsuit. One of the issues that they had was that the passengers were asked to fill out a paper stating whether or not they were sick. There was no further questioning or screening before they boarded. The ship was originally not allowed to dock in the San Francisco Bay when it came back from Hawaii after some passengers on an earlier cruise fell ill with flu-like symptoms. It was eventually allowed to dock in Oakland.

The lawsuit further states that the cruise operator should have better developed (or at least develop) practices following a similar incident on one of the company’s other ocean liners. The liner, the Diamond Princess, ended up quarantined in Japan after 700 of those aboard the ship fell ill and 7 of those passengers died. Right now, the Grand Princess is refunding the passengers the full price of their cruise as well as other expenses they incurred during their trip such as flight, hotel, any ground transportation, and any pre-paid shore trips that they took.

The couple who filed the lawsuit believed that there not only should have been better screening and preparedness policies in place, that the passengers should have been warned of any potential risk of infection. They argue that had they had known that there would be a risk of exposure on the cruise, they never would have boarded the ship to begin with. The company was negligent in being transparent about the potential risks, leading the couple to be in quarantine with the other passengers and anxiously awaiting what will happen next.

This is just one lawsuit against a cruise liner. Passengers who had a voyage on the Diamond Princess also are looking at their litigation options.

Can You Sue if You Get the Coronavirus?

This is a complicated matter, but you do have the right to sue. Whether or not you win will really depend on one big thing: did the cruise line (or other business) do enough to protect people from becoming infected with the coronavirus. There have been similar issues in the past regarding viruses running rampant on cruise liners, such as when the norovirus incident occurred. Following that outbreak, people would naturally expect that cruise liners would be better prepared in the future, taking all proper and reasonable care to ensure the safety of its passengers. While the cruise line, in this case, claims that they took all the necessary steps, the passengers suing aren’t so sure.

Cruise lines are not the only organization in trouble for putting people at risk for the coronavirus. In a Houston jail, there was the concern that the coronavirus would spread like wildfire not only there but in other jails across the country. The belief is that these correctional facilities already struggle from lack of resources that they need to run as safely as possible, that an outbreak like this one could do some serious damage. Then, they can pass this damage onto any visitors that they come across or infecting people outside of the prisons when they enter the courthouse.

The moral here is that you need to prove that the cruise line (or other organization) didn’t take the necessary measures to protect the passengers and crew from potential infection. For instance, in the case of the Diamond Princess, did they work with the Japanese government to get the quarantine and get any healthy people off of the liner? The burden of proof is to determine if the cruise liner took every precaution, had a response plan and followed it, and whether or not they properly screened the passengers and crew for the illness prior to allowing them to board. When you are in an enclosed environment, like the cruise ship, you’re in an environment where you are more likely to come into contact with the virus. This is where the likely lawsuits are going to come from.

Generally speaking, cruise lines are not necessarily concerned with the actual lawsuits so much as the fallout that will come as a result of the coronavirus. From bad press about infected crew and passengers being allowed on board to people filing lawsuits, the bad press will hurt the cruise line’s bottom line. They risk losing out on revenue due to cancellations and people just refusing to take cruises in the future. Only time will tell after these lawsuits have taken place how successful a lawsuit about the coronavirus infection will be.

It all comes down to a company ensuring that they are taking all reasonable precautions to protect their employees and their customers. For example, major events are being canceled as a way to protect people from potential infection. This is a way these organizations are mitigating their risks, taking all reasonable precautions. Some businesses are allowing their employees to work from home when possible to prevent illness from spreading. These are just some ways that companies are being transparent and creating plans that are meant to protect their employees and customers. When businesses think of the people first, they aren’t negligent and you will be less likely to win a lawsuit against them.

If you have any questions, you can contact our team of Fort Lauderdale Coronovirus lawyers at The Injury Firm for a free Coronovirus liability consultation 954-951-0000.