Thread by @NateB_Panic

A California man caught covid at work. He infected his wife who ended up in ICU. So he sued his bosses. The largest lobbying group in the US got involved. The court ruled against the man because a victory would mean “dire financial consequences for employers.” Is it clear yet?🧵

In 2020, Robert Kuciemba, a woodworker in San Francisco was infected by a co-worker after his Nevada-based Victory Woodworks transferred a number of sick workers to the San Francisco site for a few months

Victory Woodworks knew some employees might be sick but they transferred them anyway and ignored a San Francisco ordinance in place at the time to quarantine suspected covid cases

Kuciemba was subsequently infected and he then infected his wife, who ended up in ICU on a ventilator. There's a few stunning details to this case:

First, the court agreed that there is no doubt the company ignored the San Francisco health ordinance. In other words, they accepted the company had broken the law but still...

Second, the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying organisation got involved and helped the company with its defence. This is a tiny company in a niche industry. Their involvement tells us a lot about the importance of the principle they knew was at stake.

Third, the defence of the company is very telling. “There is simply no limit to how wide the net will be cast: the wife who claims her husband caught COVID-19 from the supermarket checker, the husband who claims his wife caught it while visiting an elder care home." Well, exactly

The California Supreme Court ruled against Kuciemba on the basis that a victory, while, in the court's words, "morally" the right thing to do, would create "dire financial consequences for employers" and cause a "dramatic expansion of liability" to stop the spread of covid.

This case reveals what many of us suspected but haven't seen confirmed in so many words: the public health imperative of controlling a pandemic by making employers liable for some of that control is, and always must be, secondary to capitalist profit

ko-fi.com/post/On-covid-…