ABSTRACT
Tort liability offers a means of incentivizing healthcare facilities and businesses to adopt reasonable measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Reliance on tort liability to regulate the risk of disease transmission is consistent with the decentralized approach to public health policy and the aversion to government mandates that have characterized the US pandemic response. However, thirty-six states, via legislation and executive orders, have shielded healthcare facilities and businesses from civil liability for COVID-19 transmission. Tort reform advocates lobbied successfully for these measures by arguing, contrary to the available empirical evidence, that sweeping immunity from civil liability was necessary to prevent a costly flood of litigation.
Lytton, Timothy D, Responsive Analysis: Public Health Federalism and Tort Reform in the US Response to COVID-19 (January 13, 2022). DePaul Law Review, volume 71, p 101, 2022.
First posted 2022-06-11 08:00:45
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