The Pandemic Liability Protection Act provides COVID-19 liability protections for health care providers, businesses, non-profits, religious institutions, and schools that made good-faith efforts to follow safety protocols during the course of the public health emergency declared by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Jon Opelt of the Texas Alliance for Patient Access emphasized that the bill “does not protect bad actors who are grossly negligent, engage in willful misconduct, or are consciously indifferent to their patient’s welfare and safety.”
Ah, but who’s a bad actor and who isn’t? That’s a question that’s going to be asked frequently as lawsuits are filed alleging that some owner or manager did not take sufficient steps to protect employees or customers from the threat of COVID-19.
Take Williams Brothers Construction Company. Were they grossly negligent in the allegedly COVID-related death of employee Ricky Lee Clayton? Did they engage in willful misconduct? Were they consciously indifferent to Clayton’s welfare and safety?
His widow, Angelita Clayton, thinks they were negligent and has filed suit against them in Harris County District Court.
Clayton argues that a supervisor at the construction company asked her husband to drive home another employee who was suffering from COVID-like symptoms. Ricky Lee subsequently displayed similar symptoms and died less than a month later.
Clayton contends that Williams Brothers failed to implement social distancing among their employees, did not provide them with masks, gloves, or face guards, and did not perform temperature checks during an employee virus outbreak. Nor did they require employees to stay home when sick or shut down the workplace temporarily.
Whether the company owners were negligent or not depends on the efficacy of the remediation methods cited above, which is increasingly being challenged by less hysterical members of the medical community.
Whether or not Ricky Lee and his co-worker actually did have COVID is another question, given the apparent prevalence of misdiagnoses. Also, if either or both did have the virus, where is the proof that they contracted it at the workplace?
Lots of questions to be asked and answered.