|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Tuesday, November 01, 2005Legal experts claim that hospitals could be sued for failing to admit sick patients, or for releasing them before they are fully stabilized, under a federal law which requires anyone arriving at a hospital in need of treatment to be stabilized. Although some courts might be sympathetic to the argument that the hospital was overwhelmed by a pandemic, others might not, and the possibility of such a defense might not prevent nuisance law suits and settlements. Companies hit by massive absenteeism could also be sued for failure to provide the goods or services which they had contracted to provide. Although they could argue the defense of "force majeure'" -- that a sudden and overwhelming natural disaster made compliance impossible -- it's not clear that the defense would be viable. Force majeure has often been held to apply only to an event which is both sudden and unforeseeable, and lawyers can now argue -- especially after Bush's speech -- that a pandemic is entirely foreseeable, and that companies with contractual obligations should have anticipated the pandemic and prepared for it. Still another basis for possible legal liability is "negligent failure to anticipate and prepare." For example, after the first wave of the SARS virus, Canadian nurses who subsequently contracted the virus sued the government, arguing that they should have foreseen a new wave of the virus and prepared for it. The same argument could obviously be made against many private businesses, non-profit hospitals, etc. He concludes that "for better or worse" lawyers will be playing a significant role in any pandemic we may have. I'm guessing it will be for the worse. posted by Sydney on 11/01/2005 11:04:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
