Safe harbor or whirlpool? COVID-19 and employer liability

As the national epidemic of shuttered businesses, unemployment, and cabin fever reaches unimagined proportions, there is an understandable desire to “return to normalcy,” to save a job, rescue a business, grab a burger, even in the face of an implacable, expanding virus.

Those militating for an early reopening of businesses appear to have won the ear of the White House and a number of statehouses. At the same time, there is recognition that a quick reopening may yield some number of additional virus cases. As a result, a surging movement has developed in Congress and beyond urging some form of immunity from liability for businesses in the event workers or customers fall ill from the virus that a fast reopening may cause.

The hurried reopening raises profound questions. For some, it may be self-gratification, but for millions of others, it’s staving off hunger, paying the rent, seeing a doctor, fighting off depression. But for all, the counterweight is causing or contracting a possibly fatal disease.

So, to the issue: Should those willing to reopen businesses, bring back employees, and serve customers be given some form of immunity from liability in the event workers or customers fall ill? If so, just how much protection and from what?

Workers’ comp, safe harbors, and shifting tides