Lawsuits?

Comments (Archived):

1. I think doctors and nurses might have a case against hospitals/government for not providing enough ppe. The fed might even be sue-able for its role in the PPE distribution mess.

   1. this will be endless.what if a family member has a gall stone attack and needs medical care?the only entrance to care is through the ER in NY and all offices and outpatient facilities closed so to get an MRI you need to go into a room full of people with and dying from Covid.blame is everywhere and no where.this reality i describe is the nightmare not being talked about and happening by the millions every day here.trust me.i don’t know what is right. I do know what is real.

      1. what if a family member has a gall stone attack and needs medical care?Agree. And this is precisely what most people don’t think about. That is if or when they need medical care for something unrelated to Covid they will either not be able to get it or have a greatly deprecated level of care if any. And that is w/o even considering how you are exposed to all sorts of things when in a hospital setting (as a patient or for that matter a visitor (yes)) to begin with).That is exactly what people should fear. What I have called ‘the thing that leads to the thing’ (in another context).Small example. The other day a can I was shaking slipped from my hands. Luckily it didn’t hit my foot (which had no shoe on). I thought ‘wow dodged a bullet if I had broken my foot what would I do?’. Now normally you are not looking to go to the ER or have medical care but in this case the smallest and simplest thing could end up a major issue. Most people don’t realize how that safety net protects them in that way.

         1. as an example–there is no medical facility in NY that is not at least 50% covid.sloan kettering so the hundreds of people getting cancer treatments are now in infected wards.if you break your leg and can’t be treated by the WebMD Urgent care their is a high likelihood that during your treatment someone will die from Covid while there.not complaining at all, these people are freakin heroes just going to work from the person washing scrubs to the brain surgeon doing shifts in the ER (and they all do).this is a tale of people doing what it takes and the heart of this town which is getting beaten to crap.its a parable of human resiliency.its a nightmare and a testimony at the same time,

            1. My wife is a front line doc (covid patients) and I am living separate from her (I have the best of the situation obviously but we have no clue when we will see each other again least worries of everything honestly). Was decided that I would live and commute because if she gets sick she wants to be at her hospital system vs. further away (where she is a nobody so to speak). Separately, her father who lives in one of the hotbed areas (about 72 years old with diabetes and other health problems) calls her about chest pains. His cardiologist can’t bring him in for a stress test and nobody is going to do a stent now. She tells him NOT to go to the ER based on what he is describing is more risk. She says to me ‘I don’t even want to tell him or worry him but they can’t even do a stent because of his condition no imaging can be done (because of his kidney issues). (Something like that the part I remember was ‘can’t tell him the truth and worry him’). PPE’s? She is making some of her own. I gave her N95’s I had at the office (probably expired but better than nothing). She knows they are not leveling with people as to the risks. Further if the Doctor’s have their own PPE’s they are actually (believe it or not) discouraging them from bringing in and using them. Why? Bad morale with others who don’t have something they scrunged up (really). At one point maybe a week or two ago they actually told Doctors not to walk around with PPE in the halls to not send the wrong message (that is not happening anymore and most ignored it). They have a daily zoom call every day to get updated on what is happening (I have listened to some of one before I moved out of the house).

            2. there are endless untold stories.

            3. “Scamdemic”.

            4. Good luck to you both.

   2. NJ (and some other states) have already given executive orders granting broad protection (from lawsuits) to both medical professionals and hospitals and similar. This is similar to ‘good samaritan’ laws which state that a medical person that helps out (say on an airplane) can’t be sued for a good faith effort. Note the order covers hospitals as well.Here is the NJ Order with a screen grab of some of the relevant points. Would not be surprised and I am sure there will also be broad protection federally as well when things settle down.https://nj.gov/infobank/eo/… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

   3. .To make any claim at law, one must have a “relationship” with the other party. In the case of an employee, there is clearly an employer–employee relationship. An employer has a duty to provide a safe work environment under normal conditions.Very few employers are going to be held liable if they can prove at trial that they did all they could under the circumstances, the employee gave consent by appearing for work, and worked under those conditions.Soldiers cannot sue the US Army for committing them to war, for poor leadership, for bad personal outcomes even when the officers make bonehead decisions.I suspect that if the Aid Package #4 goes through and there is a general bonus paid to healthcare workers one of the conditions is going to be to waive any and all claims.Most nurses and doctors unlikely have some kind of work agreement with their employer who is also likely not to be the hospital itself. It is often a hiring arrangement that provides benefits. This is quite common in healthcare.Anecdotally, there are tons of medical professionals who have contracted COVID19 when adequately protected. They looked at somebody’s Instagram pic on their phone on their way out after having spent the whole day in the ICU completely protected.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

2. I think it will be very difficult to prove ‘bad faith’ in decisions taken during this crisis.An epidemic is a force majeure event.

   1. .Force majeure is a contract law concept that absolves someone from performing a contract. To be enforceable it has to be written into the contract as an “express term.” Not an express term, no enforceability.It differs from an Act of God in that a force majeure is “human-initiated action that cannot be predicted or controlled by the parties to the contract.”An Act of God is an “unpredictable natural event” such as a storm, earthquake, flood, or . . . . wait for it . . . . epidemic.In law school, they might call it Acts of Man v Acts of God.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

3. I hope there are many, many lawsuits against FOX News and that it forces them to change their behavior or be classified as entertainment.They should have the word NEWS to stripped away from their channel and there should be a disclaimer before every show that it is entertainment and NOT news. When Kara Swisher wrote that NY Times Op-ED last week and started by saying she did not think Fox should be sued – I could not disagree more. I do not think their coverage falls under 1st amendment protection. To me it is the same as yelling Fire in a crowded movie threatre – here is her op-ed:https://www.nytimes.com/202…There needs to be some consequences for all this bad behavior. The Murdochs know it too – that is why they are “stockpiling” lawyershttps://www.thedailybeast.c…Normally I am not a litigious person – but enough is enough. This behavior has to stop.

   1. .What possible difference would it make legally if all of Fox News was classified as entertainment?You don’t get to sue people because you don’t like a movie. Or the news, for that matter. [Actually you can, but you may be countersued for a frivolous lawsuit — a lawsuit that lacks legal merit or has little chance of prevailing at trial — which can become expensive if you lose.]A legal cause of action has to have a bad act (tort), a victim, and damages. [Obviously, there has to be a statute which forbids such behavior.] In almost every instance in which a media outlet makes some erroneous claim, the remedy is simply to correct the error — if it can be corrected.When a newspaper publishes a known untruth, is put on notice, fails to correct it, it may rise to the level of libel.Libel is defamation which is in print, writing, pictures, on signs, embodied in effigies, or any physical presentation that is injurious to a person’s reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, or injures a person within the conduct of her business or profession.If the victim is a “public figure” then the hurdle is much higher in that it must be willful or spiteful done with mal-intent.To be awarded punitive damages — the big sweepstakes call to action — there must be at least $1 of actual damages. It is very difficult to prove monetary damages related to libel. If you called me a “dope” and I objected vehemently, sued you — from whence would my monetary damages arise?The threshold to be sued is $25 which is the filing fee in most jurisdictions. Getting sued is no big deal. Witness Michael Avenatti and his thousands of law suits (getting charged with stealing your clients’ money is, OTOH, a big deal and Mike is in jail right now), none of which amounted to a spit in the ocean. It is nothing to be sued.Business people have liability policies to protect them from the costs of being sued. If you have an insurance policy, the insuror gets to pick the lawyers, not the defendant.Don’t take legal advice from The Daily Beast as to how corporations might defend themselves.You may not like Fox News but good luck watching them being sued successfully on anything related to their delivery of the “news.” Don’t you think that George Soros would have pulled that trigger already?The legal protections for a media outlet publishing the news is almost invulnerable. Still, they have insurance for which they pay and paying an insurance claim has not a whit of impact on the insured thereafter.You are living in a dream land. Happy dreams.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

4. .This is one of the weakest arguments and offenses you have ever advanced.”I read that some guy who owns a golf course in Pennsylvania sued the state of Pennsylvania for closing down his right to keep open because the Government should not be involved in any part of our life.”I have to stop laughing before I can continue.You may want to bone up on something called “sovereign immunity” the legal principal under which citizens are unable to sue states, municipalities, cities, and affiliated entities and individuals. Who must give permission to sue the State of Pennsylvania? The State of Pennsylvania.Government is constantly and consistently “involved in any every part of our life.”Government forbids you to renovate your home without submitting your plans for their review and approval and, thereafter, they make you pay a fee. Should you fail to comply, they will fine you and compel you to demolish it and rebuild it.The government mandates the speed at which you drive, where I fly, and when I can wheel my trash can to the street’s edge. In NYC, they take more than half of your income without any joinder on your part.If you don’t get a loan in this Jabba the Hutt loan program, then you are an idiot and should not be in business. I can steer you to someone who applied for a loan at Bank A, found out that Bank A did not intend to give loans to anybody with whom they did not have an existing credit relationship.Intrepid entrepreneur went to Bank B who granted him and funded his $900K loan.The next day, Bank A changed their mind and also funded intrepid entrepreneur’s $900K loan.Upon trying to return to the money to Bank A IE was told, “We are way too busy making loans to deal with that right now. Come back in a month.”Nobody is going to be pushed away from the feed trough unless they commit fraud.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

5. .The lawsuit to which you refer is one promulgated by an outfit called the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics — WASHLIGHT. How clever, no?It is being pursued under a novel theory that twists the suit into a pretzel under the state’s Consumer Protection Act. There has never been a media news report that has ever been construed as “false and deceptive communications in the stream of commerce” the watch words that must be invoked to pound such an unlikely claim to fit the idea of consumer protection.The beef is that Fox News, Comcast, ATT conspired to “misrepresent and downplay the seriousness of the coronvirus by suggesting that it was being politicized to hurt the President.” Clearly they are within the aegis of “opinion” rather than hard news.The lawsuit was provoked when 80 journalism profs signed a letter which originated from Columbia Journalism School criticizing Fox’s nationwide corona virus coverage. You can’t sue Fox News in Washington State for something they did in Manhattan or Chicago.Meanwhile Fox New had fired Trish Reagan — one of my favorite business reporters — for suggesting that the corona virus was a “politically motivated outbreak to re-launch impeachment efforts against President Donald Trump.” That strikes me as a dopey comment, but I would not have fired her as the show is more opinion than hard news.It is going to be very hard to nail the Fox News who fires Trish Reagan for anything.The legal world calls these kind of lawsuits SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation — meant to chill Fox’s free speech rights.Under the Consumer Protection laws, WASHLITE is suggesting that news they don’t like is the equivalent of false advertising. Since there is no money changing hands, the novel consumer protection approach seems thin gruel.I personally love these kind of lawsuits that put the left on the offense and the people like Fox on the defense. When Fox wins, it sets a huge precedent and instead of chilling Fox’s free speech puts subsequent litigants on notice as to frivolous lawsuits.So, this isn’t going to be a thing. It won’t even get in front of a Judge before corona virus is in our rear view mirror.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

6. I’m already seeing bigger players sue smaller startups to get rid of or weaken in order to “offer to buy“ the competition. Sad times indeed.