Covid-19 Negligence Claims…They are coming

Thankfully, North Carolina hasn’t seen catastrophic numbers of Covid-19 cases. Knock wood. However, we aren’t out of the wood yet. From a legal perspective, this brings up an interesting question: Will there be claims made against entities for Covid-19 cases? I think the answer is most certainly yes, but they can and will take many forms.

What I will be on the lookout for are situations where an entity’s decision was the proximate cause for someone catching Covid-19. For example, let’s say a person goes to the grocery store and the store doesn’t require employees to wear masks. The person gets sneezed on by what is later learned to be a Covid-19 positive employee and then this person develops the sickness herself. Would she win a claim against the store?

Maybe. It sounds to me like a negligence claim. Did the store act in a reasonably prudent manner to protect the safety of its customers? I think under these circumstances requiring a face mask would be reasonable, so I think you could prove a breach of their duty. To me, though, the question would be proving the causation. Did the store’s negligence cause the victim to develop Covid-19? Seems likely. But how do you prove it was that exposure, and not another? We would have to have better contact tracing than we do now to make an easy time of proving that exposure. This also brings up the North Carolina-specific problem of Contributory Negligence. This might be a very possible defense to this sort of claim. Still, these are very plausible claims and it will be interesting to see what develops.

I think we’ll also be seeing way more Workers’ Compensation claims involving Covid-19. I think it should be possible to prove that under these circumstances Covid-19 would be an industrial disease. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I bet these cases are going to be popping up like mushrooms in the next 12 months.