In a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel said the 2021 law runs afoul of a provision of the Arizona Constitution which clearly spells out that lawmakers cannot revoke the right of anyone to recover damages for injuries.
The new ruling most immediately affects anyone who claims they were injured by a medical provider who was furnishing care for virus suffers between March 11, 2020 when Gov. Doug Ducey declared a state of emergency and March 30, 2022 when he terminated it.
Pushed by a lobbyist for the company that insures most Arizona doctors, the law was intended to provide them protection from lawsuits.
Unless the ruling is overturned it will mean there is no similar protection for doctors and hospitals the next time a governor declares a public health emergency.
The case was thrown out based on the 2021 law - which lawmakers made retroactive to March 2020 - which said such lawsuits related to COVID during a declared emergency can move forward only if there is an allegation of gross negligence, something far more hard to prove than the normal negligence he alleged.
"The COVID pandemic has presented a once-in-a-generation challenge from both the public health and economic perspective," testified Courtney Coolidge of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
"(The Arizona Constitution) does not permit the Legislature to wholly extinguish a particular type of claim available at common law even if alternative causes of action remain to injured claimants," Cruz wrote.
No comments:
Post a Comment