The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Hawaii
- Level
- State
- Authority
- House rules (resolution); no statutory effect
- Issued
- 2021-03-05 Mar. 5, 2021
- Effective
- n/a (resolution) (read as 2021-03-05)
- End
- n/a
- In force
- Mar. 5, 2021 (no end date recorded; counted as in force for 120 days)
- Limitation types
- Other
- Addressees
- businesses open to the public (subject of the study)
- Character
- not enacted
- Collection
- Standing duties: Hawaii DUT-HI
Operative words
WHEREAS, emergency proclamations and orders by the Governor and county mayors to prevent the spread of COVID-19 include safety measures and restrictions... which have allowed certain businesses to continue to remain open or reopen... the Legislature Reference Bureau is requested to conduct a study on business liability protections related to COVID-19-related claims
Penalty
What it required
Nothing; the resolution documents that as of March 2021 Hawaii had enacted no COVID-19 liability shield for businesses and that the House understood the proclamations' 'safety measures and restrictions' to be the terms on which businesses were 'allowed... to continue to remain open or reopen'; it asked the Legislative Reference Bureau to study 'National, state, and local health and safety guidance and directives to ensure a safe workplace and place of business' and 'Actions taken by businesses to protect themselves from liability, including health and safety policies and guidelines, COVID-19 protection protocols.' Character as recorded: not_enacted (resolution requesting a study; no legal effect).
Retrieval noteHawaii enacted no general COVID-19 liability shield for businesses in 2020 or 2021 (Husch Blackwell's 50-State Update lists none for Hawaii; the 2021 Legislature's only measure was this study resolution). The liability protection that did exist was the health-care immunity conferred by Executive Order 20-05 (Ex. HI-007 Exhibit A, restated in Ex. HI-011 Exhibit A), by the Rules Relating to Immunities for Health Care Practices adopted 'pursuant to section 127A-9, 12, 13, 25, 29, and 31' with 'the full force and effect of law' (Ex. HI-023 Exhibit A), and by Executive Order 21-06 (Ex. HI-026), each conditioned on health care facilities, professionals and volunteers 'that in good faith comply completely with all state and federal orders regarding this emergency.' That condition is Hawaii's liability-shield condition: complete compliance with every State and federal order was the price of immunity, for the one sector that received any. No Legislative Reference Bureau report on this resolution was located.