13 October 2022: Federal Court Allows COVID Negligence Lawsuit Against Nursing Home to Proceed

target="_blank">Court Allows COVID-19 Negligence Claim to Proceed Against Long Term Care Facility

In what may be a bellwether ruling, a federal court will allow a COVID-19 negligence lawsuit filed against a nursing home to go forward. Though the specific case involves a Philadelphia nursing home, the piercing of legal immunity granted by a state governor for COVID deaths may soon have a direct bearing on cases across the United States.

In a surprising ruling for nursing facilities throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declined to dismiss a complaint against a nursing home alleging negligence in protecting residents from COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic. In doing so, the court determined that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 (PREP Act) and Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 2020 order pursuant to the Pennsylvania emergency management services code (PEMSC order) do not immunize nursing homes and other similar facilities from negligence claims.

The case involves the death of a resident at a suburban Philadelphia nursing home during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic March-April 2020. The resident’s estate alleged that the nursing home was negligent because it did not enforce the implementation of personal protective equipment for staff, did not isolate or properly socially distance the resident from other residents with COVID-19, and did not implement proper infectious disease protocols, leading to the resident’s contraction of COVID-19 and death.

This ruling may open the door for families harmed by the deadly negligence that was green-lighted in states that followed the example of Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive to pursue litigation for the damages and deaths that resulted. As such, we expect this case may soon be elevated to federal appeals courts as the nursing home industry that benefited from such immunity arrangements will push back because of their new exposure to adverse judgments.