A Timely Desk Reference for a Pandemic World

• Author: Grant H. Hackley
• Pages: 30-31

BOOK REVIEW

At the start of t he COVID -19 pandemic, litigators acro ss the

country sta rted elding calls from clients ab out issues with

which they—bot h the lawyer and the client—formerly had

little exper ience. What does this force majeure claus e mean?

How can I make sure my workplace i s safe? What do I have

to worry about if I get sued by people w ho claim they got

sick from a virus spre ad at my restaurant?

Even before the pandemic , scientists had long talked

about the potential pa ndemic outbreak of a novel infectious

disease. Cas es of Ebola, swine u, and myriad other d iseases

periodical ly grace the headlines, raising t he issue to the fore-

front of public interest. However, no il lness has quite had the

impact on the world—re cently—as has COVID-19.

Thus, it seems al most prescient that a pair of intrepid

attorneys, Davis M . Walsh and Samuel L. Tarr y Jr., had

already commenc ed the compilation of a reference g uide for

litigators at the inters ection of advances in s cience and the

law, entitled Infectious D isease Litigation: Sci ence, Law,

and Procedure. The tome runs 372 pages and is broken into

16 chapters that provide insight into sub stantive and proce-

dural issues impac ting various aspects of litigation a rising

out of exposure to and il lness from inf ectious dise ases.

The rst two ch apters, on the basics of microbiology and

epidemiology, are authored by bona de s cientists. The chap-

ter on microbiology lays out spec ics of the evolving under-

standing of mic robes that cause disease and provides a n

intrigui ng history of the eld. It culminat es in a discussion of

the most recent and advanc ed methodologies used to explore

causation. Simi larly, the chapter on epidemiology prov ides

a detailed dis cussion of how epidemiological studies ca n be

essential in e stablishing causation.

Both chapters provide law yers, who may lack a basic

scientic backg round, with the tools and terms nece ssary

to understand complic ated issues of evidence and causa-

tion particu lar to the area of infectious dis eases. Moreover,

these chapters provide an u nderstanding of scientic ter ms

of art that underli ne how diseases are studied, isol ated, cata-

logued, and tracke d, which is cruci al in interpreting expert

reports and ep idemiologica l evidence.

From there, Infectious Disease Litigation delve s into the

different legal t heories and arenas within wh ich infectiou s

disease litig ation may be brought. The bo ok has individual

chapters on products liabi lity, premises liability, food-borne

illnesses, employment disputes, constitutional issues raised

by quarantine and gover nmental rest rictions, cont ract dis-

putes, and insu rance coverage issues. T hese chapters provide

an overview of each are a, laying out the element s of claims

and defenses, alon g with a framework of dec isional author-

A Timely Desk Reference for a

Pandemic World

Infectious Di sease Litigation: Sc ience, Law, and Proc edure is available at http:// bit.ly/LN462-infe ctious-disease .

ity that can be applie d in many jurisdictions. They f urther

provide a historical p erspective on how those t heories of

liability have evolved, as wel l as how they may continue to

evolve given the current pa ndemic.

To be clear, this book is not a 50- state review. However,

each chapter provides a thorough u nderstanding of par-

ticular lega l theories under which cases may be rai sed, how

those theories m ight differ by jurisdiction, a nd the par-

ticular issu es of which diligent l itigators should be aware.

Helpfully, each chapter comes complet e with practice poi nt-

ers that disti ll key points: an eas y reference to help digest

and refresh the ma in takeaways.

With this solid fou ndation in place, Infectious Disease

Litigation then proceeds th rough chapters dedic ated to

By Grant H. Hack ley, Litigation News Contributing Editor

Published in Litigation News Volume 46, Number 2, Wint er 2021. © 2021 by the Americ an Bar Association. Re produced with per mission. All rights res erved. This infor mation or any portio n thereof may not be c opied or disseminated in any

form or by any means or sto red in an electronic da tabase or retrieval sy stem without the ex press writt en consent of the Amer ican Bar Associatio n.

30 | SEC TION OF LITIGATION

Published in Litigation News Volume 46, Number 2, Wint er 2021. © 2021 by the Americ an Bar Association. Re produced with per mission. All rights res erved. This infor mation or any portio n thereof may not be c opied or disseminated in any

form or by any means or sto red in an electronic da tabase or retrieval sy stem without the ex press writt en consent of the Amer ican Bar Associatio n.