Can Employee Sue Employer for Getting Covid at Work

The corona-virus pandemic has turned global businesses upside down. Employers and employees frequently asked whether an employee may sue an employer for contracting covid at work. When lockdowns ended, employees who returned to work wondered whether their employer has a duty to provide a safe workplace. But the open question remains: if employees contract the coronavirus, are employers going to be held accountable?

This question is difficult to answer. From the vantage point of the law, it is hard to prove that an employee with coronavirus actually contracted it at work, as opposed to elsewhere. Due to the virus’s lengthy incubation period and high rate of infectiousness, proving precisely where a patient contracted the disease is almost impossible. All the same, it may still be possible to prevail in court against an employer who fails to take reasonable measures for protecting staff and customers. During reopening, it is vital to take steps to hinder Covid-19’s spread, thereby reducing the death rate and enabling the economy to recover.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a federal agency, is responsible for workplace safety. OSHA implements regulations requiring employers to maintain workplaces free of recognized hazards that cause, or are likely to cause, death or serious harm. In response to the pandemic, OSHA has declared that employers must follow guidelines set forth by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC). To protect workers’ health, these CDC guidelines specify distancing, cleaning procedures, and PPE (personal protection equipment). Generally, the more safeguards put in place by employers to prevent the disease from spreading, the lower the likelihood of a lawsuit.

To date, around 4,000 complaints have already been lodged against employers for failing to provide workplace environments that will reduce the spread of Covid-19. So far, OHSA has not imposed any fines; it has merely been directing employers’ attention to the CDC’s voluntary guidelines. Still, OSHA is currently investigating workplaces where an employee has died from the virus.

Many workers feel that OSHA has let them down by failing to protect them sufficiently. Granted, the current situation is unprecedented; nonetheless, human health and safety ought to take precedence over business interests. In a crisis affecting society as a whole, citizens and businesses alike must do their best to prevent the disease from spreading. Unfortunately, though, the threat of being held accountable will be necessary to prod many employers into doing the right thing. For that reason, merely relying on CDC guidelines isn’t enough. Employees need government agencies such as OSHA to properly regulate employers and not shrink back from issuing necessary sanctions.

Workers struggle to prove liability in Lawsuits

If an employee falls ill or dies at work, then the employee or his/her family can seek monetary damage by means of workers’ compensation insurance. This form of insurance, which exists in all fifty states, does not require proof of fault or negligence. It covers at least some of the medical bills and lost wages of an employee injured at work. The downside, however, is that accepting workers’ compensation means automatically relinquishing any right to sue the employer.

In order to successfully claim workers’ compensation for having contracted Covid-19, an employee must prove that s/he did contract the disease in the workplace. As noted above, the virus’s lengthy incubation period and high rate of infectiousness render conclusive proof highly difficult. However, if multiple employees at a single workplace site contract Covid-19, they would have a greater likelihood of success in a workers’ compensation case.

Coronavirus Lawsuits

Increasingly, employees are hiring lawyers and going to court to pursue legal action against employers who fail to provide adequate protection during the current pandemic.

For example, Wal-Mart is facing a lawsuit by the family of an Illinois employee who died as a result of Covid-19. The deceased worker’s family is claiming that the retailing giant lacked sufficient guidelines for protecting its employees.

In another closely watched case, Smithfield Foods, in Milan, Missouri, has become a defendant after a Covid-19 outbreak. Allegedly, several employees became ill after the company supposedly forced them the company to work at close quarters without adequate PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). Even worse, it is claimed, the staff supposedly received bonuses for working while sick. The suit also claims that the company refused to allow contact tracing, as well as testing, for employees exposed to the virus.

President Trump, it seems, is giving business priority over employee health. In the wake of the shutdown of two dozen meat-processing plants due to coronavirus outbreaks, the president stated that he intended to order the facilities to continue operating. He also declared that he would sign an executive order expressly shielding the plant operators from liability in the event that infected workers sued. From all appearances, the government is uninterested in having companies make the morally correct decision—to protect employees and customers from Covid-19.

Businesses looking to limit liability

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s premier business lobby, has requested that Congress enact laws limiting liability for employers who follow CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines. The Chamber asserts that no other guidelines are available and that employers, in these unprecedented times, are simply doing their best. The argument is that employers must be able to confidently reopen without worrying about threats of lawsuits.

The Republicans, led by President Trump, want to issue executive orders to permit businesses to reopen without any potential liability looming over them. The Democrats, on the other side, are seeking to toughen OSHA’s workplace safety enforcement by OSHA. A bill proposed by Democrats would have OSHA issue an emergency standard for each company to implement plans to deal with exposure to Covid-19 and controlling it. Every day, millions of workers in health care, retailing, gastronomy, and food service, among others, are exposed to this virus. Measures to protect these people from contracting the coronavirus could reduce the pandemic’s spread.