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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: The coronavirus has upended the markets, forced quarantines, and the

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Speaker 1: lawsuits are just beginning. Joining me is Bloomberg News Legal

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Speaker 1: editor Peter Jeffrey. It seems like the coronavirus opens up

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Speaker 1: the possibility of almost countless lawsuits. It does, and they

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Speaker 1: could be suits brought against companies, against governments, against individuals,

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Speaker 1: against officials. In fact, there's already a lawsuit that has

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Speaker 1: been filed against the US Health and Human Services Secretary

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Speaker 1: Alex Asar claiming that this is from San Antonio, that

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Speaker 1: the government bungled it when they allowed a woman who

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Speaker 1: had been on the cruise ship where there was an

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Speaker 1: outbreak of coronavirus to enter the general population. They tested

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Speaker 1: her twice, she tested negative, and by the time they

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Speaker 1: got the third positive test result back, she was already

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Speaker 1: out in the commu unities. So San Antonio has sued

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Speaker 1: um the Trump administration. Has the Trump administration had any

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Speaker 1: response to that? Are they going to start making sure

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Speaker 1: that people have at least three tests before they're allowed

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Speaker 1: to go back to the community. I haven't heard that

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Speaker 1: as a policy change. I think at this point, probably

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Speaker 1: the administration has bigger worries on its mind than the

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Speaker 1: odd lawsuit, which doesn't mean that there won't be you know,

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Speaker 1: formidable litigation. But then again, it's really hard to sue

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Speaker 1: the federal government that is trying to manage a pandemic response.

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Speaker 1: I mean politically, they may suffer if they don't do

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Speaker 1: it right, and so far there have been some problems

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Speaker 1: with consistency of message. But in terms of successfully suing

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Speaker 1: the federal government over this, it would it would be

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Speaker 1: a high bar, it seems though. What they want immediate action,

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Speaker 1: so perhaps filing the suit itself will make something happen.

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Speaker 1: Well that there was an example where it did so

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Speaker 1: Costa Mesa, California found out that the federal government was

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Speaker 1: going to transfer as many as fifty people from the

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Speaker 1: Diamond Princess that was that cruise ship where hundreds of

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Speaker 1: people tested positive to a former mental health facility in

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Speaker 1: Costa Mesa. They went to federal court and sued to

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Speaker 1: block that transfer, and at a certain point the government said,

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Speaker 1: you know what, the quarantine period has lapsed at this

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Speaker 1: point anyway, so sort of a moot issue, but they

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Speaker 1: did seek and if I remember correctly got a temporary

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Speaker 1: restraining order blocking the government from sending those people over

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Speaker 1: to that facility. Another suit that's been filed is the

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Speaker 1: pilots union at American Airlines. Tell us about that one.

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Speaker 1: The union said that the airline should not compel its members,

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Speaker 1: the pilots, to fly to China, that it would be

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Speaker 1: endangering them, and so they they brought suit against the

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Speaker 1: airline and um the airline and other airlines have since

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Speaker 1: negotiated with various unions on places that they they are

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Speaker 1: canceling flights anyway, So that's still working its way through.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about some suits that could happen. So suppose

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Speaker 1: an employee attends a conference or a business meeting and

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Speaker 1: gets coronavirus. Can the employee sue the employer? So at

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Speaker 1: that point it's perhaps less immediately a matter of litigation

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Speaker 1: than it is preventing a litigation. For example, the employer

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Speaker 1: first has to worry about whether they want to put

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Speaker 1: that person in harm's way, whether they want to allow

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Speaker 1: international travel, and already there are companies that are beginning

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Speaker 1: to restrict it. Then the question is if you're going

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Speaker 1: to greet a returning employee from Iran or Spain or

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Speaker 1: China by imposing a quarantine on them, Well, then there's

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Speaker 1: a question what are you going to ask them about.

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Speaker 1: Are you gonna ask them where they were, how their

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Speaker 1: health is, are they coughing? Do they have a fever.

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Speaker 1: At some point you're crossing the line. You're breaching the

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Speaker 1: privacy of the employee. So employers have to be very

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Speaker 1: careful about that too. In the Bloomberg story, it says

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Speaker 1: that businesses are scrambling to see if their insurance policies

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Speaker 1: cover disruptions caused by the virus. What kind of disruptions

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Speaker 1: are they worried about? The global supply chain, that's where

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Speaker 1: this comes into play. And of course, in the last

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Speaker 1: ten or twenty years, we've seen a tremendous reliance on

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Speaker 1: the global supply chain. Often the endpoint is China, which

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Speaker 1: was the original epicenter of this outbreak. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: manufacturers that are waiting for their vendors to deliver supplies

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Speaker 1: could sue them saying where the supplies were waiting. And

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Speaker 1: then the question is whether a concept called force masure

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Speaker 1: comes into play, where the defendant says, look, I'd love

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Speaker 1: to give you your supplies, but I can't. I've got

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Speaker 1: factory shutdowns by government FIAT in China. I simply can't

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Speaker 1: come up with it. The typical business disruption you would

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Speaker 1: expect to see in a contract with an insurer, for example,

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Speaker 1: would have to do with, say a factory burning down,

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Speaker 1: but an epidemic that then prompts a provincial Chinese government

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Speaker 1: to shut down a factory. Um, can you really compel

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Speaker 1: your ensure to pay? Right now? A lot of manufacturers

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Speaker 1: are pouring over the fine print to see whether they're covered,

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Speaker 1: and we spoke to an expert who said a lot

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Speaker 1: of them are going to find out they're not really,

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Speaker 1: So then that would mean that there would be insurance

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Speaker 1: litigation ahead. I think there's gonna be a ton of insurance.

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Speaker 1: I mean there's insurance litigation litigation every day anyway over

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Speaker 1: the question of whether this or that mishap or or

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Speaker 1: even disaster will bring forth tens of millions of dollars

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Speaker 1: of indemnification. But now you've got what is shaping up

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Speaker 1: to be of the possibility of a pandemic. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: if it does, we're going to see an even greater

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Speaker 1: amplitude and even greater possibility and potential for that kind

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Speaker 1: of litigation. There were a lot of complaints that people

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Speaker 1: were being quarantined on the cruise ships. Tell us what

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Speaker 1: you know about that. It must have been a bit

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Speaker 1: of a nightmare for these three thousand passengers on the

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Speaker 1: Diamond Princess, which is a Princess Cruises ship that was

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Speaker 1: docked off Yokohama in Japan. To them tested positive, quarantine

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Speaker 1: was imposed and now there's a struggle because the Japanese,

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Speaker 1: i think was the Health Minister testified to Parliament that

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Speaker 1: it was up to the captain of the ship to

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Speaker 1: decide what to do, and Carnival, which is the Princess

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Speaker 1: cruz parent company, said, look, we were in the port

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Speaker 1: of Japan and we had to follow Japanese rules, and

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Speaker 1: it was clear to us that we had to quarantine

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Speaker 1: these passengers rather than let them loosen to the general

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Speaker 1: population in Japan. We spoke to a lawyer who said

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Speaker 1: it was a really, really tough call because you're, you know,

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Speaker 1: between a rock and a hard place. Do you force

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Speaker 1: this quarantine on the passengers and concentrate the spread of

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Speaker 1: the virus on the ship, or do you introduce them

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Speaker 1: to a much larger population and take a risk of

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Speaker 1: infecting those people. Plaintiffs lawyers maybe having a field day

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Speaker 1: with this. What suits have you heard of that are

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Speaker 1: a little off the beaten track. Well, there was one

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Speaker 1: suit that is seeking class action status on behalf of

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Speaker 1: people who counted on Purel to work for them and

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Speaker 1: avoiding sickness. And they say that it doesn't there is

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Speaker 1: if you can get pure if you can get up here,

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Speaker 1: I can't get it now looking for the six alcohol

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Speaker 1: which I was. You know, I've learned as the threshold

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Speaker 1: you need. Um. There is another suit in which a

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Speaker 1: medical staffing company is suing the Department of Homeland Securities

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Speaker 1: Immigration Services Agency saying, look, you're not processing the H

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Speaker 1: one B, that's the highly skilled foreign worker VS is

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Speaker 1: fast enough. We really need to get skilled foreign medical

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Speaker 1: personnel into this country to help with the virus response.

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Speaker 1: And so they're they're suing the government because they say

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Speaker 1: they're dragging their heels on the H one v S.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Peter, that's Bloomberg News Legal editor, Peter Jeffrey. I'm

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Speaker 1: June Grosso and this is Bloomberg