New law provides immunity from civil damages to numerous entitles during COVID-19 crisis

A new law in Mississippi provides immunity from liability and lawsuits for civil damages to health care providers, facilities and other entities during the COVID-19 crisis.

Named the “Mississippi Back-to-Business Liability Assurance and Health Care Emergency Response Liability Protection Act,” the law also protects first responders, product manufacturers, “individuals, state and local government, associations, for-profit and nonprofit entities, religious and charitable organizations” from lawsuits

“Our healthcare facilities, schools, and other first responders have worked hard to protect the people they are caring for and working with during #COVID19 by following applicable CDC and State Health Department guidance,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wrote on his Facebook page. “The #Mississippi Senate spearheaded the effort to protect them from unfounded lawsuits by passing the #BacktoBusiness Liability Assurance Act.”

The law does not cover any injury where a plaintiff can show “clear and convincing evidence” that a person or entity “acted with actual malice or willful, intentional misconduct.”

It has a two year statute of limitations and is effective retroactively to March 14, when Gov. Tate Reeves first declared a state of emergency in Mississippi because of COVID-19.

Read the bill here.