14 Things You Must Do Right Now to Manage COVID-19 Infection Liability Risks

One of the great unknowns of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic for landlords is the potential liability for infection, including class actions by clusters of employees, tenant employees, visitors, and other persons who claim they got the virus at your property. The key to defending yourself against such a claim would be to show you took reasonable steps to control COVID-19 infection risks at your property. But what reasonable steps must you take?

Here’s a checklist of 14 best practices for infection control based on CDC and other public health guidelines and experience of previous pandemics, including the H1N1 flu of 2009.

1. COVID-19 Hazard Assessment

First, do a walk-through of the property to identify tasks and conditions involving risk of exposure. Suggested approach: Assess the hazards posed to different people at the site depending on their jobs or function, using four levels of risk classification:

Table 1. COVID-19 Exposure Risk Classifications

Unless your property is used for medical purposes or frequented by medical personnel, the vast majority of the individuals present at the site are likely to fall into the Medium and Lower classifications. We’ll explain the significance of that as we go along, starting with the next required measure.

2. Engineering Controls

Engineering controls for COVID-19 hazards may include mechanical ventilation, physical barriers, and other measures that physically protect against exposure. Once you do your COVID-19 hazard assessment, make sure you have the right engineering controls in place to protect the people at your site based on their risk classification. For most landlords—that is, those with no people in Very High or High classifications, the required engineering controls will be rather modest, if they’re needed at all.   

Table 2. Engineering Controls for COVID-19 Exposure

3. Social Distancing

The next layer of protection—measures 3 through 12—is made up of administrative controls that make the site safer by adjusting procedures and how people behave when they’re at the site, starting with social distancing—that is, ensuring that people are keeping at least 6 feet apart via:

• Posting signs;
• Distributing clear building rules to tenants and staff;
• If possible, ensuring the space is physically designed so people can do what they need to without getting too close; and
• If physical separation isn’t feasible, for example, inside elevators, limiting occupancy of tight areas to one person at a time.

4. Keeping Sick, Symptomatic & High-Risk People Home

Ensure that employees, tenants, and others who are ill, have symptoms, or otherwise pose a high risk—for example, those with infected spouses at home or who’ve traveled to high-risk areas or been directly exposed to people with COVID-19 in the past two weeks—self-isolate and work from home for at least 14 days in accordance with CDC guidance.

Practical Pointer: Be careful about screening building entrants. One infection control measure of dubious value is implementing screening techniques like lobby body temperature checks or questionnaires to keep people with COVID-19 infection out of the building. Leaving aside the privacy considerations, such measures go beyond what CDC guidelines and best practices from previous pandemics like the H1N1 flu of 2009. And in assuming a duty that may not otherwise exist, landlords heighten their liability in the event screening goes awry or discontinues and infected people get into the building.

5. Letting/Requiring Employees Work Remotely

Another dimension of social distancing is allowing employees who aren’t sick to do their jobs from home as a precautionary measure and requiring tenants to do the same thing with their own staff. Prioritize core work that needs to be done at the site and determine where this core work can be safely and productively performed from—that is, at a safe distance from others at the site.

6. Hand Washing, Hand Washing, Hand Washing

Require people at the site to wash their hands frequently. Provide soap and water or hand sanitizers and post instructions on proper hand washing technique in restrooms.

7. Cough & Sneeze Etiquette

Make sure all building occupants follow “etiquette” by properly covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough.

8. Staggering Shifts

If possible, stagger work shifts to reduce the number of employees present at the site and encourage/require tenants to do the same.  

9. Regular Cleaning & Disinfection

Ensure the site is cleaned with authorized disinfectants between shifts and as often as necessary to prevent infection, in accordance with public health guidelines. Pay particular attention to high-contact items such as door handles, faucet handles, keyboards, and shared equipment.

10. Method for Reporting COVID-19 Exposure Concerns

Establish a system for employees and tenants to inform building management or representatives of concerns about potential exposure to COVID-19. 

11. Means of Communication

Ensure information about COVID-19 in the area and at the site is being communicated to all employees and tenants.

12. COVID-19 Information & Education

Distribute a notice to all of your employees, tenants, and site occupants to ensure they know:

• What COVID-19 is;
• How it spreads;
• The risks of exposure and infection;
• How to protect themselves from those risks;
• How to recognize the signs and symptoms of COVID-19; and
• What to do if they experience symptoms. 

13. PPE

The final line of defense is making sure that those exposed to COVID-19 have and properly use, inspect, and clean appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) based on your risk classifications.

Table 3. PPE for COVID-19 Exposure 

14. Monitoring Your Control Measures

The COVID-19 situation is evolving rapidly and you need to monitor public health agencies and ensure your prevention measures are up to date with the latest guidance. Thus, for example, some public health agencies are now advising that people wear face masks any time they leave their home. And, of course, you’ll also need to revise your measures on the basis of developments at your own site, such as tenant or health official complaints or other indications that corrections are needed.