A class action lawsuit was filed this week in the United States District Court, District of Nevada against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and a host of PRC agencies by two different companies and all of those similarly situated (hence the class action) on alleged negligence and strict liability grounds. The named plaintiffs include specifically Mobile Medic CPR Training and DT Group LLC, a real estate general contractor. Both plaintiffs state that they have seen a reduced income and loss of profits since the virus entered the U.S.
Suing a country is not new or novel territory in the legal world. We have seen it in the past with countries that sponsor terrorism, mostly in the form of wrongful death action. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, there are limitations as to when foreign governments or their instrumentalities can be sued. The plaintiffs cited one of the exceptions to the act in this case. It states:
There is exception to jurisdiction under the FSIA for “discretionary acts” because the Defendants have acted clearly contrary to the precepts of humanity, transparency, and/or the internal laws of the PRC and its provincial and municipal governments prohibit their conduct.
The complaint alleges that the PRC was negligent for, amongst other reasons, trying to cover up and/or neglecting the urgency of reporting the virus and its devastating effects to the rest of the world, as they had a duty to do so. The complaint also states that PRC was negligent in trying to prevent the spread of the virus within their own country once they were made aware of it.
In addition to negligence, the complaint also bases their assertions on the legal premise of Strict Liability (Ultrahazardous Activity). Ultrahazardous Activity is one that is so inherently dangerous that a person engaged in such an activity can be held strictly liable for injuries even if that person has taken reasonable precautions to prevent injury to others. Some factors under this theory include:
Courts deciding whether an activity is ultrahazardous must consider whether
- The activity poses a high degree of risk
- It is likely that the resulting harm will be great;
- The risk cannot be eliminated by exercising reasonable care;
- The activity is inappropriate where it occurred; and
- The activity’s value to the community is outweighed by the danger.
According to the plaintiff’s complaint, the ultrahazardous activity was the location of a chemical and biological weapons lab in Wuhan near the epicenter of the origin of the virus, the Wuhan Fish Market. While the complaint stops short of alleging the virus was made there and purposefully released, it does imply that it may have originated in the lab and that it is customary that lab animals used in testing are customarily sold to street vendors at the Wuhan Fish Market.
The complaint is 23 pages long and is meticulously detailed. I have no affiliation nor am I familiar with this law firm, but it is quite apparent they thoroughly researched and authored their document. Some of the allegations that stuck out as particularly intriguing are as follows (CASE NO : 2:20-cv-00574)
- Upon information and belief, this “new” coronavirus began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on or about November 17, 2019, and subsequently spread throughout the world, including to the US and the State of Nevada. Reported information suggests that the first case occurred in the Human Wholesale Market, in Wuhan, China. Therefore, the virus has zoonotic origin.
- Shortly after November 17, 2019, the PRC and the other Defendants knew, or should have known, that COVID-19 was a “new” dangerous, contagious, and deadly virus because many Chinese citizens who contracted the virus were getting very sick, and some were dying. Moreover, DNA samples taken from these very sick and dying people confirmed that this was a “new” virus for which there was no vaccine or cure.
- Shortly after November 17, 2019, the PRC and the other Defendants received credible scientific evidence confirming that this “new” virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China was very contagious, deadly and capable of causing a pandemic.
In other words, the virus, according to the complaint, was active before November 17.
Another allegation:
- President Trump issued an Executive Order banning “banning foreign nationals other than the immediate family of US citizens and permanent residents who have travelled in China in the past 14 days” from entering the US effective February 2, 2020. However, the PRC and Defendants, from November 17, 2019 to February 2, 2020, allowed thousands of people from Wuhan to travel to the US, although they knew, or should have known, that there was a high likelihood that many of these people carried the very contagious “new” virus and would contaminate many people living in the US.
It would be intriguing to know what thousands mean. Five thousand? Twenty thousand? Fifty thousand?
Finally, a set of the most eye opening allegations describe the cover up and negligence of the PRC is as follows (this is long but it is must-read). Some of them have been omitted for brevity:
The Defendants also committed the following acts and omissions:
a. People in Wuhan started to die from the virus in December, 2019 and the Defendants suppressed and/or under-reported this information;
b. On December 27, 2019, Dr. Zhang Jixian, at the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, sounded the alarm about a “new’ disease that had already affected 180 patients and the Defendants suppressed this information;
c. From December 26-30, 2019, the first evidence of the new virus was revealed through Wuhan patient data, which had been sent to multiple Chinese genomics companies. During this time period, the Hubei Health Commission ordered one of the genomics companies to stop testing on the new virus and to destroy all the data. Simultaneously, the Defendants pressured the press not to report these facts;
e. On December 31, 2019, which was almost 1 ½ months after the first reported case, Chinese officials finally alerted the WHO about pneumonia with an “unknown cause” affecting the health of people in Wuhan. This disclosure was misleading because the destroyed data showed that the real cause was a newly discovered virus and it was far too late;
f. On December 31, 2019, the Chinese Internet authorities started to censor all social media references to this new disease and the government’s response;
g. On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan seafood market, where the virus allegedly first broke out, was finally closed. Under the guise of “disinfecting” the area, governmental authorities intentionally failed to have doctors inspect the area and failed to swab individual animal cages or to draw blood from the workers in order to determine the “real” source of the virus;
h. On January 1, 2020, eight doctors, including Dr. Li, who had been disclosing the “new” virus, were detained and questioned by the police, who condemned them for “making false statements on the internet” about a new virus;
i. On January 3, 2020, China’s National Health Commission issued a gag order on matters regarding the “new” virus, and ordered pneumonia samples from affected people to be moved to designated facilities or destroyed. The same Commission ordered medical institutions not to publish anything about this “unknown disease”;
l. On January 9, 2020, after being outed by the WHO, the Defendants finally announced the first “official death” of a coronavirus patient and that 59 additional people had coronavirus in Wuhan;
m. On January 10, 2020, the Defendants’ agent and health expert, Wang Guangfa, told the Chinese state’s China Central Television that the pneumonia was “under control” and downplayed the virus as a “mild condition”;
o. On January 14, 2020, Chinese police started detaining journalists trying to report the outbreak at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital. These journalists were also forced to delete any footages taken, and they were forced to give their phones to the police;
p. On January 15, 2020, Li Qun, the head of the Chinese CDC (Center for Disease Control) mislead the public by stating that the risk of human to human transmission “was low”;
q. On January 18, 2020, despite the known COVID-19 crisis and its high level of contamination, the City of Wuhan held a “potluck” banquet for 40,000 people to try and break a world record;
r. On January 20, 2020, Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese doctor who previously helped fight the SARS epidemic, stated during a television interview that COVID-19 was spreading from person to person. This same doctor later stated that if the Defendant PRC had acted in December 2019 or early January 2020 to contain the virus, “the number of sick would have been greatly reduced”;
t. On January 22, 2020, the President of PRC Xi Jinping stated that he had ordered local officials to contain the virus as early as January 3, 2020. However, President Jinping’s position on January 22, 2020 is directly contradicted by the statements of the local Wuhan governmental officials;
u. On January 23, 2020, the City of Wuhan was ordered locked down. However, 5 million people had already left the city without being screened by that time, and nobody knows where these 5 million people travelled
v. On January 30, 2020, the first person to person case in the US is reported. This involved the husband of a Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan, China;
w. On February 6, 2020, to further control the narrative of “everything is under control”, President Jinping orders China’s Internet watch dog to further control social media platforms. On that same day, journalist and attorney Chen Qiushi, disappeared in Wuhan after posting footage from overcrowded hospitals and panicking families
Outside of the cover up allegations, the most egregious if true, is the 40,000 person “pot luck” supper to break a world record amidst the virus outbreak.
Other firms in Texas and Florida have filed similar suits in recent weeks and there will certainly be more to follow. Pandemic liability against a country that we are both dependent on yet wary of is yet another complicating piece of the relationship puzzle and it remains to be seen the impact it has on our national security strategy.
