Legislature considers wide protections for businesses against COVID-19 lawsuits

Measure is meant to protect re-opening businesses from lawsuits filed by customers who catch the virus.

Posted 3:31 p.m. Jun 16, 2020 — Updated 4:03 p.m. Jun 16, 2020

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina businesses, universities, schools and government agencies would get broad protections from COVID-19 lawsuits under an immunity bill that moved through committee Tuesday at the General Assembly.

House Bill 118 would widen liability immunities first drafted for essential businesses, which the legislature passed in early May. The immunity from lawsuits, filed by people who catch the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, would extend to essentially every business in the state, plus government entities.

Republican lawmakers backing the bill said it's difficult to determine where someone actually caught the virus and that businesses just reopening after shutdown orders closed them for months don't need the threat of expensive legal action.

"How do you know where you got this virus?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown, R-Onslow, said Tuesday. "But I'm smart enough to know the ones who are going to be sued are the ones who've got some money."

People could still sue if a business demonstrates gross negligence or willful misconduct, but lawmakers were hard pressed Tuesday to give examples of what would qualify.

"It's limited only by the imagination of plaintiffs' lawyers," said state Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, who explained the language during a Senate Judiciary committee meeting.

Democrats on the committee, concerned the bill is too broad, pressed for examples. Newton said that, if a gas station owner sends an employee home sick with COVID-19 but continues to let customers inside without posting something on the door, that could qualify.

"That arguably is a case for gross negligence," he said. "Please don't hold me to that."

The bill requires business owners to post signs describing what they've done to reduce "the risk of transmission of COVID-19 to individuals present on the premises." But the bill also says they won't be liable "for the failure of any individual to comply with rules policies or guidelines contained in the notice."

The bill wouldn't apply to worker's compensation claims.

The measure cleared the Senate Judiciary committee and heads next to the Senate Rules committee. Democrats complained that the measure should at least force businesses to follow government COVID-19 guidelines.

“If failure to follow simple guidelines is not negligence, what is negligence?" asked Sen. Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe.

Newton said those guidelines have shifted repeatedly over the last few months and that "no reasonable person" could be expected to follow everything put out by federal, state and local government agencies.

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