Labor/Employment
Jul. 7, 2023
Employers aren’t liable for nonworkers’ COVID infection
“Although it is foreseeable that an employer’s negligence in permitting workplace spread of COVID-19 will cause members of employees’ households to contract the disease, recognizing a duty of care to nonemployees in this context would impose an intolerable burden on employers and society in contravention of public policy,” Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote for a unanimous court.
The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers do not owe a duty of care to nonemployees who may have gotten COVID-19 from family members who contracted it at work.
The decision addressed two certified questions by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in a federal lawsuit by a married couple — Corby and Robert Kuciemba. They sued the husband’s employer after the wife became seriously ill with the coronavirus and was hospitalize...
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