With a new study that shows a large number of the Covid-related putative class actions in California are filed against employers, it’s raising questions about how defendants will mount a case when data shows the difficulty of determining where the virus was contracted.
Carlton Fields’ 2022 Class Action Survey includes a Covid-19 litigation heat map. The firm found 2,875 putative class actions involving COVID-19 have been filed since the start of the pandemic, with 722 – more than a quarter of those – in California.
And the survey found that of the 722 Covid-related putative class actions here, more than 40 percent – or 289 of them – were filed against employers.
Addressing unlimited tort concerns amid the pandemic has led many states to pass liability protections for businesses. But in California such bills were not voted on when brought before legislative committees.
The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) twice co-sponsored legislation to provide such reforms for small businesses and nonprofits that complied with Covid-related government safety protocols, but neither bill advanced in the state Legislature.
“It’s not surprising that California saw the lion’s share of COVID-related putative class actions filed against employers in the nation,” Kyla Christoffersen Powell, CJAC’s president and CEO, said in an email response to the Northern California Record.
“Plaintiffs’ attorneys favor our state for class action filings as our courts are known to be laxer than those in other jurisdictions and there are fewer mechanisms available for judges to stop frivolous class actions from going forward,” Powell said. “In addition to being a class action magnet, California is also in the minority of states that failed to adopt any protections for businesses from meritless COVID lawsuits.”
The report notes that unlike suits stemming from event and other cancellations that happened at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, lawsuits against employers are expected to continue.