In March 2020, when much of Texas shut down to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the world’s largest recycler of polyethylene kept its Grand Prairie factory open as an essential business making heavy-duty Husky brand trash bags.
The following month, according to a lawsuit, Poly-America had a COVID-19 outbreak and employee Tomas Chavez contracted the disease and died.
His wife, Yaquelina Rivera, is one of the brave few willing to sue a company in Texas, alleging Poly-America failed to enact adequate safety measures to protect workers from the virus.
That’s because earlier this year Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 6 — the Pandemic Liability Protection Act — to shield businesses against claims of injury or death from exposure to a pandemic disease.
The Act protects companies against COVID legal claims unless a business knowingly failed to warn its workers about conditions that would likely lead to exposure or that it failed to implement safety standards communicated by the government at the time of exposure.
The most difficult part for people suing a company is that they have to produce an expert, such as a doctor, to prove the employee contracted COVID in the workplace.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, just three COVID wrongful death lawsuits have been brought in North Texas against non-health care companies, according to law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth’s COVID-19 complaint tracker, which provides data on state and federal litigation involving...
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