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Wis. governor's spotlight on businesses that had COVID-infected staff 'reputationally damaging'

LEGAL NEWSLINE

Friday, November 22, 2024

Wis. governor's spotlight on businesses that had COVID-infected staff 'reputationally damaging'

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MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) - The Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce has sued Gov. Tony Evers over the release of the names of businesses that allegedly have had two or more employees contract COVID-19. 

“Tying businesses to COVID-19 infections using old data that may be inaccurate, when there is no evidence that the infections in question happened on the business’s premises, and when there is no evidence there was any spread on those premises is reputationally damaging and does not protect the public health,” said Cory Fish, general counsel for WMC.

Filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court, the lawsuit has resulted in a restraining order temporarily preventing the governor from releasing the names.

“The governor’s actions set businesses up to fail by creating the reputationally damaging insinuation that the businesses on the list were spreading COVID-19 despite the fact that the list only would have included data of past, including no current, cases,” Fish told Legal Newsline. “This release would have damaged businesses’ brands while doing nothing to protect public health.”

The temporary restraining order protects businesses from damage to their reputation as alleged spreaders of COVID-19, according to a press release.

“All the Evers Administration would be doing by this release is putting a target on businesses backs without protecting the public health because the data being released is old and likely does not reflect current caseloads or whether COVID-19 was actually contracted or spread at any particular business,” Fish said in an interview. 

"An employee may not have contracted or spread COVID-19 at the business and the business likely was following all relevant law and best practices to protect their employees and customers."

The complaint, filed Oct. 1, alleges that it is illegal to release patient-identifiable information from patient health care records of thousands of Wisconsin citizens across the state because they are confidential. 

“It is our contention that the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is violating the law by releasing confidential personal health information, which includes the identity of patients’ employers,” Fish said. 

“This rule extends to the information reflected in reports of communicable diseases transmitted to DHS by local health officials: those reports, too, must be treated as patient health care records and therefore also must be kept under wraps.”

Fish further told Legal Newsline that WMC members are deeply concerned.

“The Wisconsin business community has taken countless steps to protect their employees, customers and the public from day one of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fish said. “The governor’s attempt to release the names of every business allegedly connected to two or more cases of COVID-19 would have created a list of more than 1,000 potentially “deep-pocketed” defendants for trial lawyers to prey on.”

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