Policy Matters Podcast - Episode 23: How COVID-19 Liability Shields Have Expired and Developed During the COVID Loop

Policy issues often have long term widespread and pervasive impact on businesses. Not only can new governmental policies significantly affect the climate for business innovation and growth, they create precedents that affect future legislation and potentially spread across jurisdictions.

Each installment of the Policy Matters Podcast will provide timely updates regarding potential adverse impacts on benefits that policy changes can have on industry growth and offer a preview of what’s next in the competitive marketplace.

---

Episode 23: How COVID-19 Liability Shields Have Expired and Developed During the COVID Loop

In this episode, Scott Mallery, Counsel in the Labor & Employment department of Seyfarth’s Sacramento, CA office, and Honore Hishamunda, Senior Associate in the Labor & Employment department of Seyfarth’s Atlanta office, discuss the current debate surrounding the construction of liability shields to designed protect employers against claims by employees that COVID-19 was contracted at the workplace.

Honore and Scott explore the liability shields that were constructed and implemented closer to the beginning of the pandemic, shields that are either set to expire or have expired (which in itself is indicative of how long we have been stuck in this pandemic). Honore and Scott discuss the likelihood of extensions, what those changes might look like, and how the current panoply of liability shields across the nation compare to those constructed a century ago during the Spanish Flu pandemic.