Families who lost a relative to the virus can bring COVID-19 wrongful death lawsuits in state court against nursing homes, hospitals, employers, and other entities they believe failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the fatal infection. The claims are legally permitted, but several years of litigation have shown they are unusually hard to win. Causation is difficult to prove, most states passed shield laws protecting defendants who followed public health guidance, and the two highest-profile jury trials both ended in defense verdicts.
Who Can Be Sued
The typical plaintiff is a surviving family member or the decedent’s estate. The most common defendants have been nursing homes and long-term care facilities, which suffered catastrophic outbreaks in 2020 and 2021. Hospitals have faced claims over specific treatment decisions. Employers in industries where workers could not stay home, particularly meatpacking, have been sued by workers’ families. In some cases, government officials have been named as defendants over pandemic-era directives.
The Legal Theories
Claims rest on state tort law. The core theories are:
- Negligence, meaning the defendant breached a duty of reasonable care by, for example, failing to enforce masking, isolate infected residents, or follow public health guidance, and that breach caused the death.
- Gross negligence or recklessness, meaning conduct that fell so far below acceptable standards it reflected reckless disregard for safety.
- Willful or intentional misconduct, meaning the defendant knowingly ignored serious risks or concealed dangers.
- Elder abuse, in nursing home cases where state statutes carry enhanced penalties.
Some suits also plead fraud, where a facility is alleged to have misled families about conditions inside, or medical battery, where specific treatment decisions are challenged.
Proving Where the Infection Came From
Establishing that a particular defendant caused the death is the single biggest obstacle. Because the virus was widespread and people moved through many settings, pinpointing where someone was infected is often impossible. Plaintiffs rely on contact tracing, testimony from coworkers or fellow residents, and evidence that safety protocols were violated.
Nursing home cases have a somewhat easier path. Residents’ movements were restricted, which makes the facility a plausible, sometimes the only plausible, source of infection.1Jersey City Lawyer. Fault in Wrongful Death Caused by COVID-19 Infection in a Public Place Workplace claims require extensive tracing and may still fall short of proving on-the-job origin.2Bloomberg Law. Wrongful Death Liability COVID
The PREP Act Defense and Why It Mostly Failed
The most prominent defense has been the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, which grants broad immunity to entities involved in administering medical countermeasures during a declared public health emergency. After the Secretary of Health and Human Services’ February 2020 emergency declaration, defendants argued the PREP Act preempted state tort claims and required removal to federal court.3Congressional Research Service. The PREP Act and COVID-19
That argument has largely failed. Every federal appellate court to consider the question has held that the PREP Act does not completely preempt state negligence claims. The Third Circuit in Estate of Maglioli v. Alliance HC Holdings LLC (2021) said flatly, “There is no COVID-19 exception to federalism.”4United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Estate of Maglioli v. Alliance HC Holdings LLC The Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits reached similar conclusions, and the Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Saldana v. Glenhaven Healthcare LLC in November 2022.5University of Chicago Law Review. Saldana v. Glenhaven Healthcare LLC: Should Wrongful Death Suits for COVID-19 Be Heard
The Act does provide an exclusive federal cause of action for “willful misconduct,” but the standard is extraordinarily high. A plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted intentionally to achieve a wrongful purpose, knowingly without legal justification, and in disregard of a known and obvious risk. Such claims can only be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.3Congressional Research Service. The PREP Act and COVID-19 In practice, nearly all COVID-19 wrongful death cases have been sent back to state court and litigated under state negligence law.
State Shield Laws Are Where the Real Barrier Sits
While the federal defense mostly failed, state legislatures stepped in. By mid-2021, at least 38 states had granted some form of immunity to businesses, healthcare providers, or long-term care facilities for COVID-19 claims.6Center for Medicare Advocacy. LTC Immunity During COVID Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Utah acted first in 2020. Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, and Mississippi followed with their own versions.7Husch Blackwell. 50-State Update on COVID-19 Business Liability Protections
The scope varies. Some laws cover only healthcare providers. Others extend to any business that substantially complied with public health guidance. Almost all include the same carve-out: they do not shield defendants accused of gross negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct.8George Washington University Geiger Gibson Program. State Provider Immunity Laws in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic What that carve-out is worth depends on how each state defines gross negligence, which ranges from a failure to exercise slight care in Washington to a reckless-disregard standard in New York.
New York shows how tangled this can get. The state passed the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act in 2020, then repealed it in 2021. In 2022, an Erie County judge ruled that the repeal was retroactive and that the Act had never protected facilities from gross negligence or willful harm, allowing a nursing home wrongful death case to move forward.9Napoli Shkolnik. Judge Rules Immunity Doesn’t Apply in New York Nursing Home
How Juries Have Actually Ruled
The two most closely watched cases both ended in defense verdicts.
The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington was the first major U.S. outbreak site. In April 2020, Deborah de los Angeles filed what is widely considered the first COVID-19 wrongful death suit, on behalf of her mother Twilla June Morin. The complaint alleged the facility knew of a respiratory outbreak as early as January 2020 but failed to quarantine residents, kept admitting visitors, held a Mardi Gras party during the outbreak, and took 17 days to report cases despite a 24-hour requirement.10ABC News. Family Files First Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Life Care11Courthouse News Service. Nursing Home at Epicenter of Washington State Virus Outbreak Sued In May 2023, a federal jury found Life Care not liable, concluding staff had done what they could with the guidance available at the time.12McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. Life Care Centers Vindicated in Early COVID Wrongful Death Case
The Grace Schara case in Wisconsin involved a 19-year-old with Down syndrome who died in 2021 at Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton. Her family alleged her death was caused not by the virus but by a combination of precedex, lorazepam, and morphine given without family knowledge, and by a do-not-resuscitate order no family member had authorized. They pleaded medical negligence, battery, and violations of informed consent.13WBAY. Landmark Trial in Alleged Wrongful Death Lawsuit of COVID-19 Patient Underway in Outagamie County Court14We Are Green Bay. Family of 19-Year-Old Grace Schara Takes Hospital to Court in Landmark Wrongful Death Case After a 13-day trial in June 2025, the jury found the hospital, the attending physician, and the nurse not liable on any count.15NBC 26. Ascension Wisconsin Wins Wrongful Death Case Against Outagamie County Family A motion for a new trial alleging judicial bias was denied in December 2025.16Post-Crescent. Judge Mark McGinnis Denies New Trial Motion in Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Meatpacking cases have followed a similar pattern. At least 423 meatpacking workers died from COVID-19, and families sued Aurora Packing, Tyson Foods, and Smithfield. The Fifth Circuit dismissed claims against Tyson’s Amarillo plant in 2023 under the Texas Pandemic Liability Protection Act. In February 2023, the Supreme Court declined to move Tyson’s Waterloo, Iowa cases into federal court, letting them continue in state court.17SHRM. Meatpacking Company Wins Lawsuit Concerning COVID-19 Infections
When the Worker Survives and a Family Member Dies
A different question arises when an employee brings the virus home and a family member dies. Workers’ compensation ordinarily bars civil suits over on-the-job injuries, and defendants have argued the same bar should block family claims that trace back to a workplace exposure. In See’s Candies, Inc. v. Superior Court (2021), the California Court of Appeal rejected that argument, holding that the derivative injury doctrine does not automatically block a third party’s wrongful death claim just because the chain of infection began at work.18California Courts – Justia. Sees Candies, Inc. v. Superior Court The suit was allowed to proceed past the preliminary stage.
Filing Deadlines and Pandemic Tolling
Most states give two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death claim.2Bloomberg Law. Wrongful Death Liability COVID For deaths in spring 2020, that clock ordinarily ran out in spring 2022, but the pandemic itself disrupted courts and many states tolled deadlines. California paused limitations from April 6 through October 1, 2020.19California Courts Self-Help. Civil Lawsuit Statute of Limitations New York tolled all legal deadlines for 228 days, from March 20 through November 3, 2020. For claims with longer New York limitation periods, the final tolled deadlines will not expire until 2027.20Stark and Stark. Lingering Effects of COVID-19 on New York Statutes of Limitations For many families, the window has already closed. Anyone considering a claim should check their state’s specific deadline and any tolling order that applied to it before doing anything else.