The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Ohio
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Ohio Const. art. II, sec. 1; art. II, sec. 1d (laws providing for tax levies or appropriations excepted from referendum; not applicable, hence the ninety-day effective date)
- Issued
- 2020-09-14 Sept. 14, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-12-16 (ninety days after filing with the Secretary of State); by secs. 2(E) and 4, applies to 'acts, omissions, conduct, decisions, or compliance' from March 9, 2020 (read as 2020-12-16)
- End
- 2021-09-30 (sec. 2(E): 'through September 30, 2021') (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Dec. 16, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Standing dutyOperating condition
- Addressees
- every 'person' as defined in R.C. 1.59, expressly including 'a school, a for-profit or nonprofit entity, a governmental entity, a religious entity, or a state institution of higher education' (sec. 2(D)(2)); health care providers and facilities under sec. 1
- Character
- liability shield condition
- Collection
- Standing duties: Ohio DUT-OH
Operative words
No civil action for damages for injury, death, or loss to person or property shall be brought against any person if the cause of action... is that the injury, death, or loss... is caused by the exposure to, or the transmission or contraction of... SARS-CoV-2... unless it is established that the exposure... was by reckless conduct or intentional misconduct or willful or wanton misconduct
Penalty
None (civil immunity); the immunity is lost on proof of reckless, intentional or willful or wanton conduct, and class actions are barred where the immunity does not apply (sec. 2(C))
What it required
Conditioned the civil immunity on the absence of 'reckless conduct or intentional misconduct or willful or wanton misconduct,' defining reckless conduct as disregard, 'with heedless indifference to the consequences,' of 'a substantial and unjustifiable risk' of exposure or transmission (sec. 2(D)(3)); the act is not conditioned on compliance with health orders or guidance, and sec. 2(B) provides that 'A government order, recommendation, or guideline shall neither create nor be construed as creating a duty of care upon any person' in tort, with a presumption that such orders are inadmissible to establish a duty of care.
Retrieval noteEnrolled act (version 07_EN) from the Legislative Information Systems API. Recorded exactly as written under the honesty rule: Ohio's shield, unlike Texas S.B. 6 (2021), Georgia S.B. 359 (2020) and the compliance-conditioned acts, does not make compliance with governmental health standards the condition of protection; its condition is the absence of reckless, intentional or willful or wanton conduct, and secs. 2(B) and 3(B) declare that executive, local, board-of-health and federal 'orders and recommendations... (2) sec. 3(A)(1) finds as fact that 'Ohio business owners, small and large, as they begin to re-open their businesses' faced uncertainty, and sec. 4 applies the act to the 'compliance' of Ohio persons from March 9, 2020 through September 30, 2021, the General Assembly's own description of what Ohio businesses were doing in the period; (3) the reckless-conduct exception incorporates knowledge of 'a substantial and unjustifiable risk' of transmission, which the Director's Orders and the incorporated CDC and ODH guidance supplied. The enrolled act's passage block is blank in the LIS copy.