Several McGuireWoods lawyers were featured in Richmond Law, the University of Richmond School of Law alumni magazine, for a March 9, 2021, article titled “8 Things to Know When Suing and Defending in a Post-COVID World.”
The article provided an overview of “Infectious Disease Litigation: Science, Law and Procedure,” a new guide co-edited by McGuireWoods partners Samuel Tarry and Davis Walsh that is designed to help litigators prepare for pandemic-related lawsuits. Among the book’s 32 authors — many of them Richmond Law alumni — are several McGuireWoods lawyers also featured in the Richmond Law article: Richmond associates Maggie Bowman, Etahjayne Harris, Sylvia Kastens and Frank Talbott (all Products, Environmental & Mass Tort Litigation); Richmond partner Brandon Santos (Government Investigations & White Collar Litigation); and downtown Los Angeles partner and class action practice co-chair Bethany Lukitsch (Antitrust, Trade & Commercial Litigation).
“Some of them wrote entirely from home,” Tarry said. “Some wrote from the office, but the work experience had changed. Everybody had a different work experience than they would have had if we had published a year earlier, and they had different personal perspectives.”
The Richmond Law article highlighted several takeaways from the guide:
- The litigation issues surrounding infectious diseases are vast.
- Practitioners should have a solid grounding in the applicable science.
- Product litigation standards likely will continue to shift.
- Practitioners should develop a HIPAA-compliant discovery plan at the beginning of litigation.
- A pandemic tests the limits of governmental power.
- Plaintiffs likely will bring similar allegations and questions of fact to courts in multiple jurisdictions.
- These cases are less likely to go to jury trial, but when they do, a jury’s ability to understand complex issues will play a significant role.
- Punitive damages will hinge on whether a defendant knew or should have known a risk of harm related to its actions.