McConnell's HEALS Act Is 'Bonkers' If Goal Was To Make Coronavirus Litigation Less Costly

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

say Legal Experts


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday released the Republican Party’s $1 trillion coronavirus economic relief package, called the HEALS Act. (HEALS stands for Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools). In describing the plan, McConnell has emphasized that staunch litigation protections for businesses were needed to protect against “an epidemic of lawsuits” that he suspected would arise if workers sued their employers over coronavirus exposure. Legal experts pointed out that there has been a dearth of such lawsuit. Now, if they were to materialize, the HEALS Act would only make the process more costly and more burdensome, they say.

While McConnell warned about an inevitable “avalanche” of personal injury lawsuits, according to a coronavirus complaint tracker from law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, less than 200 of the nearly 4,000 lawsuits filed in relation to the pandemic were filed as personal injury suits – the kind McConnell said would become an “epidemic.”

“The evidence suggests there has been no explosion in legal claims related to Covid,” Nicole Berner, general counsel for the Service Employees International Union, told Politico Monday evening.

Berner said the bill created an “escape from legal liability” for businesses, adding that what was needed for the average employee was “more protections, not less.” But that would result in litigation against businesses — which the bill arguably seeks to avoid.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/legal-experts-mcconnell-s-heals-act-is-bonkers-if-goal-was-to-make-coronavirus-litigation-less-costly/ar-BB17hMxi?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=DELLDHP

[Disaffected]

1. Should be called the

Heel's Act.

[Dustlawyer]

2. There is never any mention of citizen protection from negligent business interests.

They are always one-sided on the protection part. The hospitals know that it was always a matter of time before we suffered from an epidemic and yet were not prepared for it at all. They refused to spend the money to be prepared to make more profit. I know of hospitals getting staff to sign releases of liability in exchange for small bonuses to cover for their lack of PPE and other safety equipment and training.

It did not have to be this way and will be again if they do not have to worry about law suits.