John Cornyn: “it was fortuitous that I was here on the floor when my friend from Illinois decided to talk about the liability…”

“it was fortuitous that I was here on the floor when my friend from Illinois decided to talk about the liability provisions of the bill we filed last week, the next installment in the COVID-19 response. Let me just spend a couple of minutes talking about the issues he raised. My friend, our colleague from Illinois, is a very talented lawyer. He has a lot of great experience in the courtroom. He understands how courts work and how the litigation practice works. I think at last count I saw that roughly 3,000 to 3,500 lawsuits had been filed. I don't know what the exact number is, but it is pretty irrelevant because there is ordinarily, under State tort laws--at least in my State--a 2-year statute of limitations for a personal injury lawsuit. So I guarantee you that the flood is coming. Having survived one pandemic, the American economy is going to have to withstand a second pandemic of opportunistic lawsuits. I think it is going to be hard for people to prove where they acquired the virus. Ordinarily, that would be an element of the plaintiff's burden of proof, but we know that in jury trials, where expert witnesses are hired, all they would need to say is that it is more likely than not that they got it at this daycare center or this nonprofit or in this hospital--enough to create a question for the jury.…”