SB 1, introduced by Sen. Messmer, provides civil immunity to people, businesses, and organizations who negligently expose others to COVID-19. This means that, if a person or individual doesn’t take ordinary and reasonable care to prevent the spread of COVID and causes injuries and death to someone else, the person they’ve harmed can’t recover money from the person who caused the harm. The legislation doesn’t immunize gross recklessness or willful or wanton conduct. So, you probably won’t be liable if you infect someone while refusing to do something reasonable like wearing a mask, but if you go up and lick them or intentionally sneeze in their face, you might have some exposure – so to speak.
To be candid, I don’t know what the line is under current law between going out into public with a cold or the flu or breeding plague ridden fleas. But I have misgivings about this legislation because it encourages people to externalize the risks of their activity onto innocent bystanders.
Republicans are only the party of personal responsibility when somebody else is responsible…
How is it decided what is SB 1 or HB 1000?
I thought that moniker at one point that kind of decided what the legislative priority in the session was.
I’m not positive, but I expect the majority caucus leader gets to decide what’s going to be the first bill in the chamber. And, yes, I think it’s usually a bill the majority party wants to feature.
Thank you, and as always, thanks for the light you shine on these bills.
The expiration date for SB1 is December 31, 2024. It would appear that the legislators have some inside information on how quickly (or slowly) that Indiana plans on vaccinating residents…
SB 1-9 and HB 1001-1009 are reserved for high priority items most years. HB 1001 is almost always the budget so that is the reason that Civil Immunity in the House is HB 1002.
Sorry, hit send too soon.
By high priority, I mean high priority to the majority. Though many years there are bills in the high priority numbers that are bipartisan.
Republicans must not vote on this bill, Many businesses in Indiana are in denial about Covid-19. Just look at the gambling businesses . No mask because they don’t offer even employees. Not enough hand sanitizer. No people cleaning machines . No protection between customers and cashiers no plastic window between people . Employees coughing no N95 masks on employees. Those businesses are liable for the spread of Covid-19. But I’ll bet Indiana has not sent any health inspectors in . All about Money. No safety.
This would be externalizing the costs of their business. The price won’t reflect the cost of the transaction, so the market will get bad signals. Doing business in a way that minimizes the transmission of COVID is more expensive than doing it in a way that ignores the transmission.
There is a cost associated with the businesses that are vectors for COVID — customers, employees, people who come into contact with customers & employees, and people who come into contact with people who come into contact with customers & employees — will be more likely to get sick, suffer long term injury, and/or die from COVID. The costs of those consequences get shifted to the public at large and, therefore, aren’t reflected in the price. This is already an issue, but immunizing businesses that don’t take steps to avoid being COVID vectors will likely exacerbate the situation.
Pollution is probably an analogous situation — if the General Assembly were proposing to make polluters immune from civil damages.
If they’d like to add an amendment prohibiting insurance companies from using COVID as a pre-existing condition, I might come around a little on this bill… not holding my breath.
No to this bill. I resigned from my job in person teaching because of data suppression, lack of contact tracing and lack of testing. People must be held accountable for their obligation to protect humanity. If I have AIDS and fail to tell my a sex partner I am culpable of endangering their life. This is the same. NO TO THIS BILL!
I am embarrassed that this would even be considered.
What are you thinking?
No way should this be passed.
If businesses choose to put people at risk, they MUST be willing to accept that risk. Just as if someone is injured in a business or a home, the party has a responsibility to provide the safest possible environment.
This takes away all personal responsibility.
Are you kidding me??
How embarrassing.
Are you trying to protect yourselves from trouble?
Just NO. If someone willfully infects others, they should be punished.
I’m sympathetic to the idea of providing liability to businesses et al that follow reasonable guidelines (including _enforcing_ mask requirements for employees and customers alike). If you’re negligent, though? Pay up!
I’ll take the other side of this for a second, here. Negligence is such a crap shoot. I’ll give you the jury instruction definition:
Courts give great deference to jury determinations on what constitutes “reasonable care.” Having to go to a jury on a COVID case would really be rolling the dice, so there would be a strong temptation to pay up in response to a lawsuit regardless of whether you really thought you were trying to handle things reasonably.
So, I’m with you on the mask enforcement. That’s pretty close to a no brainer. But what if someone gets COVID and says you were negligent because your business didn’t do a temperature check? There’s much less consensus on the cost/benefit of temperature checks as good COVID prevention. But you’d probably be at the mercy of whoever happened to land on your jury.