In January 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor took legal action on behalf of a dental hygienist and a dental assistant against their employers, i.e., two dental practice owners. In April 2020, they had furloughed their employees after the State of Texas had prohibited a number of dental procedures on account of the pandemic.
On 22 November 2022, a first instance court in Marbella ruled that an airline, Iberia, must refund almost 900 euros to passengers who cancelled their flights in 2020 due to uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, despite the flights ultimately taking place as scheduled.
On 16 February 2023, the Singapore High Court ruled that businesses which have received COVID-19 relief grants cannot also claim rental waiver from landlords.
A few months after the United States declared COVID-19 a public health emergency, the City of Seattle passed an Ordinance requiring hazard pay for gig workers for food delivery network companies (the terms “gig work” and “the gig economy” are used colloquially to describe a business model that pays workers by the task and depends on freelance workers or independent contractors who do not receive protections usually afforded by employees, like the minimum wage, overtime, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and the right to collectively organize and bargain).
An employee brought a civil claim against its employer for damages for wrongful dismissal and sought aggravated and punitive damages for the alleged misconduct in the dismissal process. A judge of the British Columbia Supreme Court awarded the employee five months’ salary but declined to award punitive damages.
During the pandemic, Culver City passed an ordinance aimed at compensating “essential Hospital Workers for their daily sacrifices and the ongoing risks and burdens they and their families face while providing vital services to the community during the pandemic”. The ordinance required Southern California Healthcare System (SCHCC) to provide covered workers an additional $5.00 per hour for each hour worked on site at the covered location during a three-month period.
On 2 February 2023, the Madras High Court ruled that doctors who have served on COVID-19 duty may have their two-year period of compulsory bond service adjusted in the light of the time they spent on duty during the pandemic.
A group of claimants brought an action against the government of Porto Rico, arguing that all the measures adopted to avert the spread of the pandemic were ultra vires. In particular, the claimants submitted that the government had acted outside of the scope of the powers expressly granted by the Constitution since the executive power is not entitled to adopt measures that directly affect the full enjoyment of rights and freedoms by the population.
On 29 November 2022, in a judgment that was published in January, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared Catalonia’s pandemic-era legislation on commercial leasing unconstitutional, as it violated the contractual freedom of the parties involved.
A group of people, whose health has been allegedly harmed by adverse effects of vaccine inoculated by health authorities for different diseases, including COVID-19, tried to file a complaint against the national government before the Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, but the court refused to accept the lawsuit.
In March 2020 the Governor of Minnesota declared a peacetime emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic under the Minnesota Emergency Management Act, according to which the Governor may declare a peacetime emergency “only when an act of nature, a technological failure or malfunction, a terrorist incident, an industrial accident, a hazardous materials accident, or a civil disturbance endangers life and property and local government resources are inadequate to handle the situation”.
On 16 February 2023, the Constitutional Court mostly validated the constitutionality of the several health measures taken during the pandemic by different levels of government but declared a measure adopted by the Flemish Community unconstitutional.
In judgment 15/2023 issued on 9 February 2023 together with other two judgments, the Constitutional Court has held that no alimony is owed by the employer to the employee when the latter, subject to the obligation to vaccinate, decides not to vaccinate and is temporarily suspended from its employment contract.
A bench of the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Shah Alam High Court which granted leave to hear a case filed by staff and teachers of the Universiti Malaya challenging the government’s vaccination program against COVID-19.
On 3 February 2023, a senior coroner in Wales found that the deaths of two nurses aged 63 and 65 due to COVID-19 should be a considered as industrial disease. The coroner found that both nurses had likely caught the virus at their respective hospitals. Although they were given appropriate personal protective equipment, they were still exposed to the virus while working and became infected, causing their deaths.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lawyer employed in a law firm asked her employer for a leave to stay at home on account of her son showing symptoms resembling COVID-19 based on the limited knowledge of the virus at that time (a cough, runny nose, and gastrointestinal issues).
A former nurse who suffered an adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine won an appeal against a court’s decision which ordered her to pay 1,500 Singapore Dollars for the maintenance of her two children after divorcing her husband.
On 7 February 2023, the Spanish Supreme Court has quashed a decision by the High Court of Justice of Cantabria that had annulled the Cantabrian government’s decision to close hospitality businesses’ interiors in November 2020.
In March 2020, Dare County Boards of Commissioners passed a number of COVID-related regulations aimed at limiting the spread of the virus. One of these measures prohibited non-resident property owners from entering the county. Non-resident owners were given four days to travel to the county and reach their houses; the restriction lasted for 45 days.
The Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina upheld the first and second instance decisions that declared the lack of jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit brought against the People’s Republic of China by a foundation for the alleged damages suffered by Argentinian due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Italian Constitutional Court, with three parallel judgements published on 9 February 2023, has rejected the claims of unconstitutionality referred by several administrative courts concerning the law on healthcare personnel vaccination.
The small claims court at the Gloucester and Cheltenham County Court awarded an air passenger £429 after arguing that he should have been refunded for a flight he did not take due to government advice against non-essential travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. The flight was scheduled on 30 July 2020, during the first months of the pandemic. The claimant was 65 years old.
On 20 January 2023, the Supreme Court of India rejected a plea from a private university which sought to challenge a lower Court’s order concerning the charging of hostel rent to students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The High Court of Punjab and Haryana had pointed out that, since the school, during the pandemic, had charged 25% of the price for contractors of services such as canteens, shops, etc., charging the full price for hostels to students was unjustified.
During the early stages of the pandemic, the New York State Legislature ceded powers to the then Governor on an emergency basis. On 24 June 2021, the Governor rescinded his previous COVID-related emergency orders, thus ending the emergency resulting from the pandemic. Nonetheless, on 22 June 2022 the Commissioner of Health adopted as a permanent regulation a COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare facilities and their workers.
The High Court of Madras directed the authorities to allow a UK national whose travel documents had expired to return to his country without penalties for overstay. In doing so, the court considered a submission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating that the man could apply for an exit visa without any penalty.
On 31 January 2023, the Administrative Tribunal of Bastia (Corsica) annulled a decree by the authorities in Haute-Corse limiting the practice of hunting within a twenty-kilometer radius of a person’s home for a period of three hours. The state will also have to pay €3,000 to the departmental federation of hunters in Haute-Corse.
In 2022, California passed Assembly Bill (“AB”) 2098, a statute providing that “it shall constitute unprofessional conduct for a physician and surgeon to disseminate misinformation or disinformation related to covid-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment and the development, safety and effectiveness of covid-19 vaccines”.
In January 2023, the Kerala High Court stated that COVID first line treatment centers must be regarded as hospital for the purposes of insurance coverage.
On 9 November 2021, a Chilean woman requested the Undersecretariat of Public Health copy of the vaccines' patents, the details of each of their components, information on their origin and common uses, their usual uses, as well as what function they fulfill in the formula of each of the vaccines. The claimant also asked whether there had been any changes in the composition of each of the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 that have been used in Chile and the information on each component.
In January 2021, the owner of a restaurant filed with the Superior Court of California a class action seeking refunds for the fees, taxes, and/or charges (and any penalty fees) levied by the County and State entities against them during the period when they were forced to close or to severely limit their business activities on account of COVID-related executive orders.
On 23 January 2023 the Kenyan High Court ruled that commercial banks could resume charging transfers from bank accounts to mobile money operators. The charges had been suspended in 2020 when, due to the pandemic, the Central Bank of Kenya decided to set favorable conditions for the promotion of cashless and online payment methods, at a time when business were under lockdown.
On 18 January 2023 the High Court of Delhi supported the claim of a secondary school teacher challenging the school’s request to get vaccinated before being allowed to teach. The court noted that the personal autonomy of any individual includes the right to refuse medical treatments and, therefore, the right to refuse vaccination.
On 4 October 2022 (recently published), the Commercial Court n°8 of Barcelona held that an airline was not liable for compensation for a flight cancellation during the pandemic.
As part of his efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden issued a series of vaccine mandates. The Supreme Court of the United States has already enjoined the federal government from enforcing the OSHA-issued mandate for large employers but has upheld the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers (see the relevant stories published on 15 January 2022 and 21 January 2022 respectively).
In a case reported on 23 January 2023, the Hochdorf District Court confirmed a fine of 1000 francs to a general practitioner in Lucerne who violated the law on epidemics during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 25 January 2023, the Tokushima District Court dismissed a restaurant’s lawsuit asking compensation for reputational damage caused by public authorities when, in July 2020, they made it known to the public that a person, later confirmed as a COVID case, had entered into the premises. The plaintiff claimed that the name of the restaurant was made known without consent and that the spread of the news had damaged its reputation.
This project and its database have been made possible with the financial support from the World Health Organization