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Will Lawyer With TB Face Civil Liability or Bar Charges?
Turns out that the mysterious passenger with a rare strand of a highly drug resistant form of tuberculosis who, against warnings from various specialists, returned by plane to the United States from his European honeymoon, thus potentially exposing all passengers aboard to the illness, is a lawyer -- Andrew Speaker of Georgia. Speaker, who is now quarantined in a Denver hospital, has since apologized to the passengers aboard. But according to this news story from USA Today (6/1/07), Speaker defended his decision to travel: He says that CDC knew of his TB, but never ordered him not to leave the country nor warned that he was a risk. And when the CDC told Speaker not to return, he was already in Europe and feared that he might die if he could not fly to a special facility in Denver for treatment. Health officials dispute Speaker's version, saying that he was told that traveling is against medical advice.
Professor Bainbridge explores Speaker's potential liability for FWI (flying while infected). First, Bainbridge wonders whether Speaker violated a federal criminal statute for flying, especially after having been warned not to do so. Next, Bainbridge considers the possibility of tort liability, analogizing Speaker's action to cases involving intentional or negligent infliction of venereal disease, which many courts recognize as an actionable tort. And Bainbridge digs up a case that's even more on point: a Pennsylvania matter where prisoners exposed to tuberculosis virus were held entitled to damages for mental suffering for fear of having contracted the disease or transmitted it to others.
Aside from being able to understand the grounds for potential liability, is it relevant that Speaker was a lawyer? Should Speaker have assessed the risks any differently from a plumber or a doctor or a teacher because he was a lawyer (and presumably aware of potential liability)? Or will Speaker garner less sympathy because he is a lawyer, and his conduct -- which Bainbridge accurately describes as "selfish, narcissistic, and wholly lacking in regard for others" -- is regarded as typical for lawyers?
I'm not sure about the answers to those questions, but I do know that Speaker's status as a lawyer matters in one respect, i.e., whether he can be subject to bar sanctions for his conduct. Bainbridge considered that possibility as well, though he notes that:
Georgia doesn't appear to have a legal ethics under which Speaker could get in trouble. Nothing seems to address "conduct unbecoming" or "conduct that brings the proession into disrepute," at least outside the context of representation of a client." But Bainbridge adds that if Speaker is convicted of any felony or "a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude where the underlying conduct relates to the lawyer's fitness to practice law," he could be disbarred on those grounds.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on June 1, 2007 at 02:44 PM | Permalink
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