Note that just before the attendees entered the arena to attend the rally, people working for the Trump campaign went around the building removing the stickers on alternate seats which instructed the attendees not to sit on them. The management of the arena put those stickers there to make it easier for attendees to socially distance themselves from other people. The campaign people didn’t want anything in the arena that implied it was good to socially distance. This is discussed in Video appears to show Trump campaign removing social-distancing stickers in Tulsa | Donald Trump | The Guardian. How does that affect the possibility of attendees suing the campaign?
IANAL but I feel it would strengthen any legal claims that might be made against the Trump campaign. People could now make the argument that they contracted Covid19 because of the close proximity to other attendees and that they wouldn’t have gotten so close if they had been advised of the need for social distancing. So now they can argue that by removing those stickers, the Trump campaign took an act of commission which caused people to contract the disease.
Seems awfully weak to me. You’ve got the assumption of risk and open and obvious hazard doctrines.
Wouldn’t a reasonably prudent person who walks into the Trump rally be able to clearly see that people are sitting in seats next to each other and be able to avoid that if they wished?
I also think that by this point in time, the social distancing thing is so widespread that a reasonably prudent person knows that it is recommended that you social distance and if you choose not to you have assumed that risk.
Also, premises liability law is a bad fit for a virus; almost all of the cases have to do with physical injury on the property. Covid-19 is not a condition that is unique to this arena.
Wouldn’t a reasonably prudent person want to know that Trump campaign workers removed all the “Do Not Sit Here” social distancing signs that the venue had on every other seat?
Maybe someone who handles more personal injury cases than me can chime in with a better answer, but I simply don’t see how that matters. It is very commonly known that the CDC recommends that you stay six feet away from people and wear masks. When you walk into the Trump rally, it is open and obvious that people are not wearing masks and sitting closer than six feet from each other.
Armed with that information, you can leave, wear a mask, or sit in an empty seat six feet away from the next person. I simply don’t see how that could give rise to liability.
When the venue agreed to host the event, those signs were up. The Trump campaign took down those signs after the contract was signed and without the venue’s permission. Do you really think the venue would have paid for and put up those thousands of signs if they didn’t think it would effect their liability?
Pretend for two seconds that the venue was your client and that the contractee for an event was taking down thousands of safety signs without permission right before the event. What would you advise the venue to do about it?
I would certainly advise them to keep the signs up and tell the Secret Service not to remove them as an extra layer of protection for the venue. Lawyers are always being extra cautious and the cost of signs in relation to operating a large venue is minimal. But the question is are the signs necessary to prevail in a lawsuit. I don’t think they are, but someone else might have a different opinion.
So now you say that signs are a layer of legal protection?
Sure, they are an additional piece of evidence that you can use to defeat the plaintiff’s claim. I never said otherwise. But I am not saying the converse that the absence of a sign dooms you in the suit.
I mean, you don’t see signs in the arena that say “Please don’t dive off of the second deck headfirst to the first deck below.” Do you think a guy that did that would have a good case against the arena for the lack of a sign?
Of course, that’s an absurd proposition, but once you get into the social distancing thing, the reasonably prudent person knows that you should be six feet away (much like how the reasonably prudent person knows not to dive off the second deck) and therefore a sign is not necessary.
Every state is different, but the majority rule is that a business owner must inform business invitees of known risks that are unique to that premises, not general ones that are applicable everywhere. My torts professor said that there was an easy acronym to remember what they were which was HDTSP&TL (the joke being that isn’t an easy acronym at all to remember, but for some reason I remember it when I can’t remember where I left my car keys) which stands for “hidden dangers, traps, snares, pitfalls, and the like.”
I just don’t see how when you walk into an arena and decide to voluntarily sit into a seat next to another person, knowing as a reasonable person would, that such a thing is against CDC guidelines and increases your chances of catching Covid-19 means that the arena should have extra told you.
In another thread I was talking about the decision my HOA made not to open the pool in our neighborhood. Our insurer was going to refuse to defend any COVID related lawsuits. We briefly considered just requiring a waiver, but that waiver would only be a strong defense to any lawsuit. It wouldn’t stop anyone from suing and we would still have to defend ourselves.
Room for one more over here on the conservative side. We have comfy couches and a drink hour before dinner. Please consider. 
To add: That’s why more and more people are favoring tort reform. Now your HOA doesn’t get to have a pool this summer for anyone just so some jackleg can sue if he knowingly takes his family to the pool and one of them gets sick. That makes things worse for everyone.
Tort “Reform” causes more injustice than it is designed to cure.
The threat of a lawsuit because someone “got COVID” wasn’t the only issue. Other scenarios that were explicitly mentioned as COVID-related were
Injuries and damages stemming from altercations over pool capacity and social distancing
Allegations of discrimination if we are in the situation where we have to turn people away because of pool capacity.
To be clear, the thought that someone would bring a fake lawsuit by alleging that they caught COVID at the pool wasn’t on anyone’s mind and wasn’t a part of the discussion. We were much more concerned about the two other situations. Enough residents had a hot-headed response to the initial idea of a pool closure that we felt altercations were more likely than not.
Discrimination allegations are always an issue, as well. The residents of the homes that use that pool are probably 20%-25% African-American, yet there’s always some ass that starts questioning the black kids to confirm that they really belong. And that one was especially tricky because we can collect releases upon entry but we can’t make someone that was denied entry sign a release.
The thing is, if someone gets beat down or beat up because we opened our pool with some half-assed rules that we we unable to robustly and fairly enforce, they SHOULD be allowed to sue us. And in our discussions we had a hard time coming up with a model for robust and fair enforcement. While we MIGHT have taken the risk if our insurer had our back, the bottom line is that it would still be a risky proposition. I was just grateful that our insurer helped us make what I think was the right decision anyway and gave us some cover for doing so.
Even though frivolous lawsuits always gets lots of press, I believe that most lawsuits have some merit. And they are the only thing that give any teeth to health and safety regulations. I’m a huge proponent of robust regulation. I think corporations generally lack a moral center- this is why “corporate personhood” is dangerous, corporate persons are sociopathic. Regulations are are the only thing keeping consumers from being defrauded, poisoned and injured in the name of profits.
TL:dr I disagree with you. Go home and take your comfy couches with you.