John Goldberg

Business lobbyists and executives are pushing the Trump administration and Congress to shield American companies from a wide range of potential lawsuits related to reopening the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, opening a new legal and political fight over how the nation deals with the fallout from Covid-19. Government officials are beginning the slow process of lifting restrictions on economic activity in states and local areas across the country. But lobbyists say retailers, manufacturers, eateries and other businesses will struggle to start back up if lawmakers do not place temporary limits on legal liability in areas including worker privacy, employment discrimination and product manufacturing...In theory, Congress could set uniform federal standards and take away the right to file lawsuits in state courts, said John Goldberg, a Harvard law professor who specializes in torts, or the law of civil wrongs and injuries. The Constitution gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and restarting a national economy wrecked by a national pandemic would probably qualify. “Saying we’re doing this to restart a national economy that has basically collapsed — it would be pretty hard to say that isn’t directly related to interstate commerce,” he said. But what Congress could do and what it is politically likely to do are two different things.

Whenever U.S. stores, restaurants and theaters reopen from coronavirus shutdowns, they may face an unexpected problem: lawsuits from sick patrons and workers. Business owners hit hard by Covid-19 are eager to get back to work as the outbreak shows signs of slowing and the Trump administration pushes for a quick restart of the nation’s economy. But with no vaccine for the easily transmitted virus, companies opening too soon could be blamed if more people get sick...A wave of personal-injury cases could bankrupt businesses, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is recommending government protections. And though it may be difficult to prove that any one company was responsible for spreading Covid-19, legal experts say a surge in such claims could strain the court system...For those that reopen before eradication, there is an increased risk that customers will claim they got sick and suffered due to the company’s negligence, said John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in tort law. Plaintiffs must show, among other things, that the business breached a duty of care owed to the customers and that its actions caused them harm, Goldberg said.

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For much of her life, Linda Fairstein was widely viewed as a law enforcement hero. As one of the first leaders of the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes unit, later the inspiration for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” she became one of the best known prosecutors in the country. She went on to a successful career as a crime novelist and celebrity former prosecutor, appearing on high-profile panels and boards. But since last Friday and the premiere of “When They See Us,” Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series about the Central Park jogger case, Ms. Fairstein has become synonymous with something else: The story of how the justice system wrongly sent five black and Latino teenagers to prison for a horrific rape...In a statement, a lawyer for Ms. Fairstein, Andrew T. Miltenberg, accused Netflix and Ms. DuVernay of “misrepresenting the facts in an inflammatory and inaccurate manner” and threatened to take legal action. (John C.P. Goldberg, a Harvard law professor and expert on defamation law, said that Ms. Fairstein’s position as a public figure would make it difficult for her to win a defamation suit.)

By Fox News's own admission, a retracted report in May about the deceased Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was bad journalism. Nevertheless, the network is well-positioned to fend off a lawsuit brought by Rich's family that alleges “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” according to legal experts...The network has not offered a detailed explanation of how the faulty news report made it online and on the air. But John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School, said he “would expect that most courts would be ... reluctant to impose liability on journalists — even highly irresponsible journalists — out of concern to protect freedom of the press.”

Stamford’s largest biotech company is mostly known by government officials and the general public because of one drug. As the maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma has been pummeled by controversy since the opioid hit the market in 1996. The company has poured many millions of dollars into promoting Oxy, and made billions in return. But an increasing number of public officials and medical professionals see the revenues as tainted because they say Purdue has knowingly stoked the escalating epidemic of opioid abuse by consistently making false claims about a drug linked to thousands of deaths...In 2007, Purdue pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally misbranding OxyContin to mislead and defraud physicians and patients. The company agreed to pay some $600 million in criminal and civil penalties and other payments. Despite the perception that settlements represent at least some admission of guilt, companies see agreements with plaintiffs as preferable to the risks associated with a case going to trial. “Jury decisions are very unpredictable,” said John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School. “It’s very possible that they’d lose their shirts if they went to trial. There could be some catastrophic punitive damages awarded. They want the closure. What businesses tend to hate the most is uncertainty.”

...More than 400,000 Americans die annually in part because of avoidable medical errors, according to a 2013 estimate published in the Journal of Patient Safety. In 2008, the most recent year studied, medical errors cost the country $19.5 billion, most of which was spent on extra care and medication, according to another report. If a problem such as Thompson's stemmed from negligence, a malpractice lawsuit may be an option. But lawyers who collect only when there's a settlement or a victory may not take on a case unless it's exceptionally clear that the doctor or hospital was at fault. That creates a Catch-22, said John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in tort law. "We'll never know if something has happened because of malpractice," he said, "because it's not financially viable to bring a lawsuit." That leaves the patient responsible for extra costs.

...After the election, Allred, a high-profile feminist activist and die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter, found herself at a loss for how to console the young women who admired her, according to a recent New Yorker profile of the lawyer. Not knowing what to say, she decided to act. Three days before Trump's inauguration, the two women filed a lawsuit against him and announced it at a press conference. They were suing Trump not for sexual harassment or assault but for defamation—the accusation is that Trump called Zervos a liar when he knew very well that she was telling the truth...John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School, told me that politicians' jobs often involve calling their opponents liars, making defamation charges tricky. "A suit by a losing opponent, for example, would be regarded as 'sour grapes,'" he says.

Kordel Davis, a member of Beta Theta Pi at Penn State University, says he told his fraternity brothers to call 911 after noticing a 19-year-old pledge who had been drinking tumble down the stairs, then end up comatose on a couch. Nobody called for 40 minutes, and the young man, Timothy Piazza, was later pronounced dead. Amos Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah, says Mr. Davis should have done more than just urge someone else to call for help. Mr. Guiora is leading a push to impose a duty on bystanders to take affirmative action to assist those they see in peril... “Prosecutors rarely if ever actually prosecute persons for these crimes,” said John Goldberg, a law professor at Harvard University. Mr. Goldberg said there’s a difference between pressing someone to alert authorities if they see a person being beaten from a distance and demanding they step forward to try to stop murder by agents of a genocidal government.

An op-ed by John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky. On Monday, the Connecticut Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Munn v. Hotchkiss, a tragic personal injury case. The court will be sorely tempted to make bad law in Munn. It must resist that temptation. Cara Munn, 15, was bitten by a tick while hiking on a mountain in China during a summer trip organized by The Hotchkiss School, her private school. The tick transmitted encephalitis, which has left her permanently unable to speak. Cara and her parents sued Hotchkiss in a federal court, arguing that the school was negligent for failing to warn them that the trip might bring her into contact with disease-bearing insects and for failing to take steps to ensure that she used insect repellant, wore proper clothes while walking in forested areas and checked herself for ticks.

The recent special, “The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey,” which aired on CBS earlier this week, has drawn widespread attention for exploring the 20-year-old unsolved mystery of the 6-year-old girl’s death. In the show, investigators examined evidence and came to the conclusion that JonBenét’s brother Burke Ramsey, who was 9 at the time, was the likely culprit. While not everyone bought into the theory that the boy killed his little sister — perhaps by accident — , and then his parents covered it up to protect him, it’s gotten a lot of people talking...On top of those elements, Harvard Law Professor John Goldberg said that because Ramsey has spoken about the case, like he did in an interview with Dr. Phil, a court would likely consider him a ““limited purpose public figure.” This means that when it comes to statements made about Burke in connection to the case, he would be considered a public figure, which carries an additional burden. Goldberg said, “Burke could only prevail on a defamation claim against CBS or the investigators by proving not only that the allegations against him are false, but also that CBS and/or the investigators either KNEW that they were false when they made them, or were RECKLESS with regard to the truth or falsity of the allegations.”

A MassBay Community College professor is threatening legal action against a student who organized a protest last week in response to the school's handling of abuse allegations. Bruce Jackson, Chair of the Department of Biotechnology and Forensic DNA Science at MassBay, has provided Patch with a letter of intent to sue Greg Gregory for defamation following statements made on a flyer advertising the protest...John Goldberg, a Harvard Law School professor who teaches about defamation cases, said that if the case were to move forward much scrutiny would be placed on Jackson's status as a public or private figure, as MassBay is a publicly funded community college. "The main question is whether or not the professor counts as a public figure by being employed by a state institution," Goldberg said. "If you're a public figure and defamed, you have to prove that the person who defamed you said something about you that was false and knew at the time that they were uttering a falsehood, which is a hard standard to meet."

When a Connecticut judge last week allowed family members of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victims to continue their lawsuit against a gun manufacturer, experts saw the decision as a means to put off deciding the legal merits of the case...Bushmaster almost certainly doesn't have to worry about losing the case, but it also wants to avoid a major settlement and any negative publicity around the case that could sour public opinion toward them, according to John Goldberg, a tort law expert at Harvard Law School. "The gun manufacturers are going to have to weigh risks against other risks," Goldberg told Mashable. "If they do end up settling this, then that's a signal to other plaintiffs out there that if they get a somewhat favorable ruling from a judge, then they can succeed as well."

...When things like this happen, questions arise: Who’s responsible? If treatment makes things worse — meaning that a patient needs more care than expected — who pays? It depends...But lawyers who collect only when there’s a settlement or a victory may not take on a case unless it’s exceptionally clear that the doctor or hospital was at fault. That creates a Catch-22, said John Goldberg, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in tort law. “We’ll never know if something has happened because of malpractice,” he said, “because it’s not financially viable to bring a lawsuit.” That leaves the patient responsible for extra costs.

Ben Carson had a pretty remarkable track record for a job that involved slicing people’s heads open. In his three-decade-long career as a neurosurgeon, Carson, the newly minted leader of the ever-fickle Republican polls, faced a total of eight malpractice claims in the state of Maryland, according to the Maryland Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office...“The key question in a case involving an allegation of a botched neurosurgery is whether the defendant or surgeon used the care and skill that is customary among neurosurgeons,” Harvard Law School professor John Goldberg told The Daily Beast... “In the case you mention, the plaintiff would have been required to prove, first, that Dr. Carson actually did not examine the MRI (a factual issue), and, second, that prevailing standards among surgeons required him to consult the MRI before conducting surgery of the sort that was performed (a legal issue).” He added that the plaintiff would also have to prove that there was a direct link between the perceived error and the problems that occurred thereafter.