Grinberg: Update on Kuciemba and Civil Liability for COVID-19

Tuesday, March 22, 2022 | 0

The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board is back to in-person hearings and trials. I have reports from the first few practitioners who have had in-person trials again.

Gregory Grinberg

Thanks to all my beloved readers who managed to attend the COVID-19 update last week. If you missed it and would like an encore for your office, please drop me a line.

As one attendee pointed out, there is an update in the Kuciemba case. As you may recall, the federal trial judge in the Kuciemba matter dismissed plaintiffs' claims, reasoning that California law does not allow an employee’s spouse to sue the employer for negligent COVID-19 exposure, instead limiting damages to the workers’ compensation system.

Well, the plaintiffs in Kuciemba appealed, and oral arguments were held on March 10. It appears that the 9th Circuit panel is considering a “wait-and-see” approach to hear from the California Supreme Court for guidance.

In other words, the issue of employer COVID-19 liability to non-employees is not resolved or certain yet. We should continue to monitor the situation, but I respectfully submit that we, on the workers’ compensation side of things, should be making sure we don’t cut corners that might prejudice the civil side of things. In other words, don’t let this picture be you.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about when assessing a COVID-19 workers’ comp case, but, to quote Mr. Hyman Roth, “this is the business we’ve chosen.”

Gregory Grinberg is managing partner of Gale, Sutow & Associates’ S.F. Bay South office and a certified specialist in workers’ compensation law. This post is reprinted with permission from Grinberg’s WCDefenseCA blog.