Congress will have to pass a law immunizing companies and organizations from lawsuits with regard to the virus or our economy will die from the fear of lawsuits. We did this in Y2K, we need to do it now. If not, no company will open back up in fear that they will be liable.
In this specific case, the colleges should offer expanded online classes or rebates for extra classes. They had to pay for the staff, they did not make money on the early closing. I think they can give back room and board fees. But not education if they did not benefit form the closure. Its a force major (act of God). Which means it could not be helped and everyone takes the risk.
Force majeure?
It is a case of Force Majeure. Not sure how to really deal with it. These stop gap spending bills are not going to be very effective imo. Just piling on debt for the future. It’s not imo going to cause any inflation with the GDP contracting 30%-40% this year. But we will have to pay for it. A better solution would be some kind of “suspension” of obligations, and reimburse from the top down (banks->landlords->renters).
But even that only covers real estate. Covering all the tuition, another matter. Covering lost pay, yet more still. States are all going to cry for lost sales tax and income tax. Federal income taxes will be way off. This whole thing may cost us $8 trillion by the time all is said and done.
A company I work with was acquired by a larger company with a lot of exposure to the food and restaurant business. They laid off 20% of their workforce and had to write down 15% of their accounts receivables because so many of their customers can’t or won’t pay, and may never re-open. They won’t be reporting a profit, or paying bonuses etc.
I agree, room and board should be refunded if the students were forced to leave, but if they’re still taking classes, their lawsuit may not work. I do wonder how certain Majors are being handled however. Engineering and Medical students need classrooms, while say, an English major does not.
That is absolutely correct. Any business that opens and has an employee fall ill would be a target for the ambulance chasers. I’ve been concerned about that. Thank you for reminding that a precedent was set for Y2K. It needs to happen here.