CHICAGO – Conservative talk show host Steve Cortes told Steve Bannon, host of the podcast show “War Room Pandemic,” that trial lawyers seeking to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic are "smelling blood."
“If there’s any group that can stop an American Renaissance it’s trial lawyers,” Cortes said on Bannon's show.
Litigation observers are predicting a surge in the number of lawsuits filed by workers against the companies they worked for, claiming the companies exposed them to the coronavirus and made them sick. As a result, business owners may be reluctant to reopen for fear of litigation from employees or customers.
One of the key issues is, are businesses liable for their workers who get sick in the workplace?
Questions to be answered will be which types of businesses should be protected, and whether a business will have defense against lawsuits that allege anything less than gross negligence. That would require a plaintiff to demonstrate that a company showed a deliberate disregard for the safety of workers or customers.
Lawyers from the Atlanta-based firm of Alston & Bird LLP did a summary of new lawsuits around the country and noted that workplace-related suits, including complaints accusing businesses of exposing workers or customers to COVID-19, continue to increase with many more likely to follow, according to report in The Dispatch.
Cortes called the potential rise in tort lawyers seeking damages for clients one of the most “nettlesome” problems the country faces.
“It’s not going to be easy to deter them (lawyers),” Cortes said. “Most of those (workplace) lawsuits are not related to federal laws. Mostly it’s the states.”
Cortes said states that continue to pursue “lockdown” status will suffer.
“I’m not confident in my home state of Illinois there will be any sensible proposals to limit liability related to the virus,” he said. “In states like Texas, Tennessee, Georgia they have legislators who are pro-free-enterprise, in general they’re Republicans.”
Cortes said restoring confidence is key to people who have become nervous about spending. Despite a healthy stock market and the federal reserve pumping money into the system to spike liquidity, the chasm between Main Street USA and the markets is widening, he added.
“I’m most worried about demand destruction,” Cortes said. “Even when we reopen, that’s difficult to fight, resurrecting demand. People are skittish because they have lost their jobs or might lose their jobs.”
Cortes said to restore buyer confidence, one possibility could be to let people collect unemployment benefits for a time while getting back to work in a sort of “double-dip" payment.
“There's a chance we can quickly get legislation through that will give people confidence,” he said. “Speed is of the essence, we can’t wait until fall. Unfortunately, liability, insurance companies and trial lawyers; these are massive hurdles for us to get over.”
An unemployment rate possibly reaching 19 percent (last week 12.4%), the worst since before World War II, Cortes called an “economic inferno.”
“The virus, we didn’t want it, we didn’t invite it,” he said.
He predicted congressional Democrats would engage in pork spending and chicanery in response to the crisis.
“We should let tens of millions of workers get an immediate pay raise,” Cortes said. “We might suspend taxes and let them keep it for the rest of the year. This will engender confidence and spending.”
Cortes said the country has reached a breaking point.
“People have acted admirably,” he said. “But we can’t ask people to sit around and do nothing, that might work for Italy. It’s critical we open up.”
Cortes called President Donald Trump “the right man to lead a resurgence.”
“He (Trump) is a businessman,” he said. “We look to the states for on-the-ground policies. I think we’ll see states flourish while my state Illinois is floundering.”
Cortes said the reopening of schools is a “low-risk” proposition.
“People can’t take jobs and are on unemployment because they have kids home from school,” he said. “Children are not overwhelmingly vulnerable to the virus.”
Cortes also warned of Saudi Arabia attempting to use the pandemic to gain market dominance selling its oil. Critics have contended the Saudis are trying to harm the American fracking industry (extracting oil from rocks) and ramping up their oil production, dumping oil into a global economy on the brink of recession to kill off rival U.S. producers that have less liquidity.
He predicted Trump should and would be blunt with the Saudi royal family.
“That’s if they go gangster on us,” Cortes said. “The Saudis smell blood. They’re only in power because of our military.”
Cortes said he expects more bad news in the immediate future before the country turns around.