Alabama Supreme Court Holds State’s COVID Immunity Statute Applies to Personal-Injury Lawsuit Against Hospital
- February 02, 2024
The Alabama COVID-19 Immunity Act (ACIA) provides an affirmative defense to a hospital being sued for negligence by a patient who fell and was injured while exiting the premises following monoclonal-antibody-infusion therapy to treat her for COVID-19, the state’s top court held January 26.
The Alabama Supreme Court issued a writ of mandamus directing the trial court to vacate its order striking the hospital’s affirmative defense to the negligence claims.
On September 22, 2021, Voncille Askew went to Triad of Alabama, LLC, d/b/a Flowers Hospital, for infusion therapy prescribed by her doctor after she was diagnosed with COVID-19. Askew fell and sustained serious injuries while leaving the facility through the entrance/exit that Triad specifically designated for COVID-19 patients to isolate them from the hospital’s general population.
Askew sued Triad, which raised the affirmative defense of civil immunity under the ACIA to the negligence claims. Askew argued that the action did not include a “health emergency claim” under the ACIA and only arose from the hospital’s failure to maintain a safe premises. The district court agreed to strike the immunity defense.
The high court, however, found ACIA immunity applied to the negligence claims under a broad reading of “health emergency claim,” which the statute defines as “[a]ny claim that arises from or is related to Coronavirus.”
Plaintiff urged the court to adopt a narrower reading in line with the statute’s more specific examples involving exposure to, contraction of, or preventing the spread of COVID-19.
But the high court found the statute’s reference to “any claim” was unambiguous. Moreover, the ACIA prefaced the specific examples with the language “includes but is not limited to,” the high court noted.
“The statute imposes no limitations on the chain of causation or on the relation between a claim and Coronavirus outside of those limitations inherent to the words ‘arises from’ or ‘is related to,’” the high court concluded.
Ex parte Triad of Alabama, LLC, No. SC-2023-0395 (Ala. Jan. 26, 2024).