Opinion: Liability protections are key tool to helping small businesses
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Nancy Martinez is the founder/CEO of New York Career Training School and a candidate for City Council in District 31.
By Nancy Martinez
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is taking over the Senate during unprecedented times. Regardless of the many issues the Senate and House will have to tackle during the 117th Congress, it is critical for the health and economic wellbeing of Americans that responding to the coronavirus pandemic remains the top priority. Nearly 400,000 Americans have tragically lost their lives because of the virus, hospitals are straining under the pressures of increased hospitalizations, and small businesses across the country and in New York are struggling to stay open and keep people employed.
While President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will be tasked with managing the vaccination rollout, Congress will be charged with managing the economic recovery. One of the many tools in their toolkit to help small businesses survive the pandemic and economic downturn is reasonable liability protections for main street businesses, particularly essential businesses like convenience stores that have remained open throughout the course of the pandemic and the many ever-changing stay at home orders.
While liability protections are not a silver bullet to provide small businesses with the security they need to reopen and stay open, it is an important component in a suite of policy options that would support small businesses. And thankfully, it would be easy for Congress to tailor these protections to ensure that they apply to businesses who have done their best to protect their employees and customers, and abide by the coronavirus-related regulations on the local, state and federal level.
These rules have changed frequently, often with little to no warning, leaving businesses scrambling to update their operating procedures. But most businesses have risen to the occasion to adjust accordingly, and used their own personal funds to increase cleaning procedures, enforce mask mandates and limit capacity, and many installed partitions between employees and customers for an extra layer of protection.
Despite all these enhanced safety measures, many businesses are still at risk from those who claim that they were exposed to the coronavirus at an establishment. Those businesses that are at increased risk are the stores that have been encouraged to stay open throughout the pandemic as part of the “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce” to provide our communities with the essential goods and services they need. Oftentimes these businesses are one of the few that remain open throughout the course of the pandemic, so are easier targets for frivolous lawsuits.
While many coronavirus-related lawsuits will be difficult to defend in court, given that the virus has reached community spread - meaning that the virus is so widespread that many will get the virus with no known contact with a sick person - it will still be costly for any small business to fight a COVID-related lawsuit in court even if they win the case in the end.
It's important to note that, as mentioned previously, liability protection legislation could be tailored to ensure that bad actors could still be held accountable. This is critical, so those who have been exposed by a business that willfully ignored procedures can still have a recourse to seek justice.
New York has already grappled with liability protection issues early on in the pandemic, adopting the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA), which broadly protected health care workers from liability for actions taken in treating COVID-19. They did this because they knew it would save lives, and liability protections for businesses would ultimately save jobs.
Reasonable and tailored liability protections are key to our economic recovery, because without which, small businesses could be forced to close their doors for good fighting an ungrounded and unfair lawsuit. I am confident that Senate Majority Leader Schumer will keep small businesses in mind when crafting the next round of coronavirus relief legislation, and include liability protections for businesses.
Nancy Martinez is the founder/CEO of New York Career Training School, board chair of the Rockaway East Merchant Association (REMA4US), second vice chair of the Joseph P. Addabbo Family Health Center and a candidate for City Council in District 31.
