Does any venue in the US have Jurisdiction to prosecute the WHO? Lawsuit filed against WHO over its handling of coronavirus outbreak: https://abcnews.go.com/International/lawsuit-filed-handling-coronavirus-outbreak/story?id=70264726 Selected excerpts from news article: Richard Kling and Steve Rotker of New Rochelle and Gennaro Purchia of Scarsdale, filed the suit in White Plains federal court Monday and claimed they suffered "injury, damage and loss" because of the outbreak and want the WHO to pay "incalculable" damages. Steven Blau, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, argued WHO didn't do enough to ensure the Chinese government was transparent of its COVID-19 safeguards. "The Chinese government and the WHO intentionally misled the international community, including the named Plaintiffs, about the coronavirus and its devastating medical and economic effects,” It is unclear which statute is violated. How is it possible for a multinational NGO to be prosecuted for unsuccessfully containing a pandemic? UPDATE: Missouri AG file similar lawsuit against China The lawsuit “seeks recovery for the enormous loss of life, human suffering, and economic turmoil experienced by all Missourians” caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Several defendants are identified, including the CCP, China’s health ministry, the governments of Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The suit claims that these entities were negligent in attempting to contain the initial outbreak in Wuhan, and that they deceived the international community as to the prevalence of the outbreak. While the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 generally prevents Americans from suing foreign governments in U.S. courts, there are certain exemptions embodied in the legislation which are targeted in the lawsuit.
The Proper Defendant As a preliminary matter, it would be necessary to determine who the proper defendant was in the case, in order to analyze it further. The World Health Organization (WHO) is probably a different legal entity from the United Nations (UN) itself and merely affiliated with the UN from a legal perspective, rather than being legally considered to be an agency of the UN. So, the WHO rather than the UN would be the proper defendant. Subject Matter Jurisdiction Federal courts have limited "subject matter" jurisdiction and this must always be analyzed before other jurisdictional considerations are considered. But, U.S. District Courts are allowed to adjudicate civil lawsuits where the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 and the defendants are not citizens of the same U.S. state. This is a civil lawsuit, the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, the plaintiffs are citizens of New York State, and the Defendant is not a New York State entity. So, the federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over the case. Venue Venue is proper in a federal district court if the district court can assert personal jurisdiction over the defendant. A district court, in turn, has personal jurisdiction over any defendant over whom a state court of general jurisdiction in the state where the district court is located would have personal jurisdiction. Note, as an aside, that where none of the events giving rise to the suit took place in the state, and the defendant does not reside in the state, any of the U.S. District Courts in the state is a proper venue, whether or not the Plaintiffs reside there, if the general jurisdiction state courts of the state would have personal jurisdiction over the Defendant. Personal Jurisdiction General Jurisdiction It appears that the WHO does not have a permanent office for the conduct of business in the United States (it's headquarters is in Switzerland and none of its regional offices are in the U.S.), although it might have a full time representative at the UN offices in New York City. Therefore, a federal district court in New York State (or a state court in New York State) would probably not have the authority to assert "general personal jurisdiction" (i.e. jurisdiction over any case against the defendant without regard to how it arose) over the WHO because this is not a "headquarters" or equivalent permanent office in New York State. Specific Jurisdiction To have "specific personal jurisdiction" over over the WHO (i.e. arising from the facts of the particular case and limited to that case), the WHO would have to have taken actions directed as someone within the state in which the District Court in question is located which would suffice to personally avail itself of the laws of that state and the United States. Failure to adequately take actions in China for the general benefit of the world, would not suffice to meet that standard. While the injury may have occurred in New York State, the actions alleged did not occur in New York State and were not directed in any particular way to New York State as opposed to anywhere else, and no one is alleging that the WHO intentionally or negligently itself sent coronavirus germs to New York State, even if it may have failed to take certain steps that it had a duty to take, and that failure made the arrival of those germs in New York State possible. Tag Jurisdiction A third way to acquire personal jurisdiction in some cases is called "tag jurisdiction." "Tag jurisdiction" provides a court with personal jurisdiction over an individual in a particular case in the state where personal service of process upon that individual took place, without regard to other considerations. But, "tag jurisdiction" does not apply to entities such as the WHO. Governmental Immunity Moreover, even if a U.S. District Court did have personal jurisdiction over the WHO, this action would be a "tort" action and the WHO would also almost certainly have some form of sovereign immunity under U.S. law from a tort action of this type. The relevant U.S. statute is the International Organizations Immunities Act (full text here). The key provision for purposes of this question is 22 U.S.C. §288a(b) which states: International organizations, their property and their assets, wherever located, and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy the same immunity from suit and every form of judicial process as is enjoyed by foreign governments, except to the extent that such organizations may expressly waive their immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of any contract. The definition of an International Organization for the purposes of the act is 22 U.S.C. § 288 which provides a general rule protecting international organizations in the absence of an executive order to the contrary. The President may revoke an international organization's immunity prospectively by executive order (except in the case of 13 organizations who are covered by a specific statutory provision; the WHO is not one of them), but neither a private organization nor a U.S. state or local government, may do so. And, an executive order purporting to revoke an organization's immunity retroactively would be void as an ex post facto determination. Conclusion In summary, then, this lawsuit will very likely be dismissed either for lack of personal jurisdiction, or on account of an immunity from tort liability doctrine, in response to a motion to dismiss, without ever getting any further. It might also be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted on other grounds (e.g. the lack of a legal duty or the lack of plausible allegations sufficient to support the claim that the WHO's actions or inactions were a legal cause of the harm suffered). Footnote Re Legal Basis For The Claim On The Merits It is unclear which statute is violated. It would be unusual for a claim for personal injury to arise under a statute. Most claims for personal injury are brought on the basis of a common law claim of negligence which would arise from the case law of New York State's state courts in this case (pursuant to the Erie doctrine). A negligence claim has four canonical elements: The existence of a legal duty (normally the legal duty to use reasonable care to refrain from causing injury to others) of the defendant that runs to the plaintiffs. Breach of the legal duty by the defendant. The causation of the damages alleged by the breach of the legal duty by the defendant in a foreseeable manner. Actual damage to the plaintiffs.
Since wolves physically cannot construct and legal petitions pro se, they can't sue in courts on their own. However, the same is true of various humans. The real legal question is whether a wolf (or other animal) has standing to sue (with the aid of a crafty attorney). The question is not entirely decided in the US, but the odds for animals having standing in court are poor. In the case of Naruto v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418, a macaque in Indonesia took some selfies with an unattended camera. The camera owner published the photos and claimed copyright: PETA and others then filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the photographer, acting on behalf of the macaque (assigned the name Naruto). The court dismissed the case, but the specific reason was that PETA failed to assert &quot;next friend&quot; status, especially that &quot;the next friend has some significant relationship with, and is truly dedicated to the best interests of, the petitioner&quot;. In an earlier decision, Cetacean Community v. Bush, 386 F.3d 1169, the court do not have statutory standing under the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. But there is also Article III (constitutional) standing. The court notes that Article III does not compel the conclusion that a statutorily authorized suit in the name of an animal is not a &quot;case or controversy.&quot; As commentators have observed, nothing in the text of Article III explicitly limits the ability to bring a claim in federal court to humans. ... It is obvious that an animal cannot function as a plaintiff in the same manner as a juridically competent human being. But we see no reason why Article III prevents Congress from authorizing a suit in the name of an animal, any more than it prevents suits brought in the name of artificial persons such as corporations, partnerships or trusts, and even ships, or of juridically incompetent persons such as infants, juveniles, and mental incompetents. Indeed, in Palila v. Hawaii Department of Land &amp; Natural Resources, 852 F.2d 1106, the endangered finch palila sued, being represented by attorneys for the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and other environmental parties. The lawsuit was successful, in part because the court reasoned that the bird ( Loxioides bailleui), a member of the Hawaiian honeycreeper family, also has legal status and wings its way into federal court as a plaintiff in its own right. The Palila (which has earned the right to be capitalized since it is a party to this proceeding) is represented by attorneys for the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and other environmental parties who obtained an order directing the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (&quot;Department&quot;) to remove mouflon sheep from its critical habitat. Sports hunters, represented by the Hawaii Rifle Association, among others, had intervened to dispute the contention that the Palila was &quot;harmed&quot; by the presence of mouflon sheep. However, the main reason why the suit succeeded was that defendants failed to argue that the bird did not have standing. The Cetaceans court referred to the Palila case (also 9th Circuit), and dismissed that statement as &quot;nonbinding dicta&quot;. Their discussion is then followed with numerous cases where the Palila statement is found to not be a binding holding. There have been some successes, Marbled Murrelet v. Pacific Lumber Co, 880 F. Supp. 1343, in dicta states that Thus, as a protected species under the ESA, the marbled murrelet has standing to sue &quot;in its own right.&quot; Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt, No. C-93-1400-FMS, slip op. at 9, n. 4 (N.D.Cal. Sept. 1, 1993) (quoting Palila, 852 F.2d at 1107.) See also Loggerhead Turtle v. County Council of Volusia, Florida, 896 F.Supp. 1170.
Greendrake's answer says that a country can declare any jurisdiction it likes. This is true, but in practice it is the convention that a country should claim jurisdiction only over its territory and its citizens. The point about "citizens" is normally not pushed, as when you go to a foreign country you are normally subject to its laws rather than those of your home, but for instance there are laws against child sex tourism where the perpetrators can be prosecuted at home for offences committed abroad. However this basic principle gets more murky with long-distance communication such as the Internet. Someone in country X can, for example, provide a service to someone in country Y which is illegal in country Y. At this point the laws of country Y have been broken by someone sitting in country X. Y is not claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction; the crime occurred inside its own territory, but the criminal is currently resident in X. From a legal point of view this is the same as if both had been inside Y when the crime was committed, but then the perpetrator fled to X before they could be arrested. So in the Kim Dotcom case, Dotcom is alleged to have committed criminal copyright violations by supplying movie files to people in the US. In the Meng Wanzhou case, Meng is alleged to have made fraudulent statements to American banks to the effect that Huawei was complying with US sanctions law (otherwise those banks would not have been able to do business with Huawei). The accounts I've read don't say whether Meng was in the US for those meetings, but the fact that they were made to American banks in order to do business in America makes the precise location of the meeting irrelevant.
Partial answer (other parts of an answer would be jurisdiction specific): Would this constitute a slander lawsuit against the group of employees and outside agency? The employee falsely alleged to be mentally ill would be the plaintiff who would be the only person who would have standing to bring suit. The person allegedly making a false statement to someone other than the employee alleged to be mentally ill (an action which is called &quot;publication&quot; of a false statement) would be the defendant(s). Listening to an allegedly false statement about someone is not slander, nor is believing it to be true. In the U.S., in most cases, knowledge of the truth or reckless disregard for the truth (or at least negligence in getting the facts wrong in private persons cases not involving a public interest) is necessary to establish liability. Someone who doesn't know that a statement is false and has some basis to believe it is true, can't be guilty of slander. In many non-U.S. jurisdictions, slander liability is possible without knowledge that the statement made is false (and without reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement). Also, it matter who the &quot;outside agency&quot; is in this case. Governmental agencies are typically immune from liability for slander for statements made in the course of their official duties. Without a fuller understanding of who is saying something and why, it is hard to evaluate the claim appropriately.
In the US, there are a number of non-government organizations which take on such cases, such as the ACLU or the Institute for Justice; individual law firms may also take such cases pro bono. There is no automatic right to free representation in case a constitutional issue is alleged, so if IJ doesn't like your case they won't take it. These are private organizations: there is no general government agency that one can call on, other than the Public Defender's office in case you are charged with a crime and can't afford legal defense. (A constitutional issue may arise in a case that a PD might handle, but you can't e.g. call on the public defender to sue the government for infringing your 2nd Amendment rights.) A state attorney general could file suit against the US government over a constitutional issue, as Washington's AG did in the case of the Trump travel executive order, where the underlying issues were constitutional. An individual might inspire a state AG to take on an issue, but the AG would be representing the interests of the state, broadly, and not individual interests.
In the U.S are judges, attorneys, physicians, teachers, professors, politicians, administrative officers liable for ordinary negligence? In the U.S., judges, prosecuting attorneys and legislators have absolute immunity from civil liability (but not from criminal liability) for legislative and judicial acts in their official capacity. Attorneys have absolute immunity from civil liability from some claims from some people (e.g. defamation claims from non-clients for statements made in connection with representing someone) and qualified immunity from civil liability from others (e.g. most claims of non-clients) for their acts as lawyers, but are liable to their clients for ordinary negligence. Physicians are liable to their patients for ordinary negligence in the nature of medical malpractice. Some acts taken by physicians that would otherwise constitute false imprisonment or assault or homicide are excluded from the definition of those crimes. Elected officials in the executive branch including mayors, law enforcement officers and the attorney general have qualified immunity from civil liability for their official non-judicial acts. This means that they are only liable for intentional violations of constitutional rights that are clearly established in the law. Subject to narrow exceptions (e.g. driving or medical malpractice) they are not liable for ordinary negligence. It is hard to know what kind of liability is contemplated for teachers and professors or administrative officers to answer. The answer would not be the same for all kinds of claims. Teachers of minors generally have the same immunities as a parent with respect to the use of physical force towards their students in order to maintain order in the educational process. The liability of teachers and professors also depends upon whether they are employed by public or private institutions. Those in public institutions often have more protections from liability, but also have exposure to civil rights claims that those in private institutions are not. Contractual waivers can also influence liability in these circumstances. Everyone has liability for ordinary negligence in their unofficial capacity and for many acts (e.g. driving a car) while on duty but not involving activities particular to their professional responsibilities. They are not employees or workers so that they could be reasonably absolved for ordinary negligence. We expect employees to be obedient so they have no moral responsibility, if we held them liable we would harm the market people would be reluctutant to enter a contract of employeement. In the private sector, employees are usually liable for ordinary negligence that they personally commit, even though the employer is also liable. Judges are employees and arguably workers as well. And, for their non-judicial acts, judges have the same liability as every other employee for their ordinary negligence. For example, if a judge gets in a car accident while driving from one courtroom to another, and harms another through negligence, the judge has personal liability for the judge's ordinary negligence and the judicial branch has vicarious liability for the negligence of its employee, the judge. In all these of judges etc cases they receive more than enough indenization for assuming responsibility. By freeing them from ordinary negligence we are making them negligent. Other than political economics why would the legislator free them from such responsibility? Analysis of why the law is the way it is, or what it should be, are really better suited for Politics.SE than for Law.SE. I discussion of the why's of judicial immunity is appropriate for Politics.SE. A discussion of "judges etc" is probably to broad for either forum.
Maybe, but probably not, although this would be a question of fact to resolve on a case by case basis under broad legal standards by a jury, and would also depend upon the state where it took place, and upon the nature of the employer of the paramedic. The hypothetical facts in this case are rich enough and ambiguous enough that the case could go either way depending upon how it was presented and what could be proven at trial. This is a case it would be good to take to a medical malpractice/personal injury lawyer in the jurisdiction where it happened to be evaluated. Usually a PI lawyer would not charge you for doing so or would ask for only a nominal fee. Additional factual investigation would probably also be necessary regarding some of the key facts identified below. It's complicated and there are multiple issues presented in this case where the law is not uniform from state to state. The general rule is that a medical professional has to carry out the delivery of medical care to a patient with the reasonable care that would be taken by a medical professional of that type. If the medical professional fails to take reasonable care, and that negligence failure to do so causes injury, then there is civil liability for medical malpractice. A threshold issue would be whether a medical professional-patient relationship was established. This would be a question of fact for a jury and would be a question upon which various potentially applicable state and federal laws would often not be uniform. On these facts, it could easily go either way. In federal court and in a majority of state courts (although there is variation from state to state) you need to know the name of the paramedic you dealt with who provided the bad advice to bring a successful lawsuit before suing. In a minority of states, you could sue first and get the name of the paramedic in discovery through the court process from the hospital after the lawsuit was commenced. The standard of reasonable care liability in this case would be judged by the standard of a reasonable paramedic, not a reasonable doctor. But, often states would have statutes that would limit the liability of paramedics in these situations to liability for gross negligence (which the facts in the question would probably not suffice to show), but not for ordinary negligence (which a jury could come out either way upon and which would hinge heavily on expert testimony). These tort reform type laws differ considerably from state to state. Whether or not particular conduct was negligent or grossly negligent, is a question ultimately decided by a jury under very broad and general legal standards after the fact in a trial, based largely upon expert testimony, on a case by case basis, unless the facts are unequivocally clear one way or the other, which is rarely the case. With my layman's level of knowledge about what a reasonable paramedic should be able to diagnose, I could see this determination going either way. Two cases with identical facts in front of the same judge in separate trials, in which juries are presented with exactly the same evidence could come out differently. The resolution of one case of the question of whether a particular act constituted negligence giving rise to liability is not binding as precedent and is not admissible as evidence in another case (subject to a narrow exception called &quot;collateral estoppel&quot; which applies when the same individual is sued by multiple people for the same conduct in different lawsuits that have resulted in final orders resolving key questions of fact that the lawsuits have in common). Many states would require that someone suing the paramedic have a medical professional certify that the paramedic's actions constituted legal negligence before the suit could go forward in a court. If there is a medical professional-patient relationship, and if the medical professional was found to have negligently caused injury, the medical professional's employer would have vicarious liability in some (but not all) states under a respondiat superior doctrine. Usually, the paramedic at an ER would be an employee of a private EMS ambulance company or a municipal fire department, and not of the hospital that runs the ER. But, some hospitals have their own in house paramedics. Also, some hospitals are run by for profit or nonprofit private companies, some are state or local governmental agencies, and some a federal government agencies. Usually only a small minority of the medical professionals in a hospital are employed by that hospital, and most of them merely have &quot;privileges&quot; to provide medical services for which they bill patients separately while working for their own professional corporation through which they are self-employed. Legally, the hospital itself is more like a hotel or a WeWork office space than to being a firm that directly provides medical services, although it isn't quite that black and white. Holding the ER directly responsible for failing to have good triage policies, as opposed to holding the paramedic responsible and assigning vicarious liability to the employer of the paramedic, would be very difficult, although not necessarily impossible if the ER had official policies that fell far below the standard of care for emergency room triage. It would be very uncommon for an ER to have bad policies of this type. Typically, ERs are only held directly liable for bad triage policies when, for example, they have a policy of not evaluating at all someone who does not have health insurance, which is a practice expressly prohibited by federal law. If the paramedic's employer was a government entity such as a fire department or a government owned hospital, the paramedic would be entitled to absolute immunity from civil liability under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, unless an exception applied. Usually there is an express exception to absolute immunity for medical malpractice liability by a medical doctor who has established a doctor-patient relationship with a patient, when the medical doctor is employed by a state or local government, usually there isn't when the doctor is employed by the federal government. But these laws differ from state to state in fine details that matter in a case like this one regarding whether the exception to immunity from liability is limited to medical doctors or applies also to paramedics. Causation would also be an important factual issue for trial. There is liability only to the extent that taking a non-negligent action could have prevented the harm. If you are infected with COVID, one common consequence is a stroke, and if someone had a stroke while infected with COVID, the case that taking them to the ER would have prevented the stroke from doing serious damage in the long run is weaker. On the other hand, guessing that a stroke was really something else, might or might not be reasonable. The injured person would also have to prove that the EMS response occurred at a time within the roughly 1-2 hours after the start of a stroke when it is possible to take medical action that could do something about a stroke. If the stroke had already happened an hour and a half later and it was rush hour and would have taken half an hour to get to the nearest hospital, causation might be absent and there would be no liability. There would be a legitimate question of fact over whether there was an actual diagnosis and treatment, or whether there was a refusal to get treatment. The reasonable care test is a balancing test. It takes into consideration not just the potential benefits of taking action, but also the cost that would be incurred if action was taken, and the downside risks of a proposed action. The paramedic's concerns about getting a COVID infection at the ER when the person responded to didn't appear to have it at the time would make the cost of a false positive diagnosis higher and would thus influence what would constitute reasonable care in this situation as the jury applies the relevant legal test. Liability would be evaluated based upon what the paramedic reasonable understood he was being told. This would be a question of fact for the jury. It is likely that different people who were present understood what was being said differently. Even if bystanders understood what was being said and meant, what matters is what the paramedic reasonably understood was being said and meant. Given the communication difficulties involved, that question could go either way.
The other answers have addressed the letter of the question you asked, but I wanted to correct a misconception in your question statement: ... It's bad enough to suffer some horrible side effect, but not even being able to seek compensation is just the last straw. Note that under the PREP Act, you can seek compensation from the government if you are injured by a covered vaccine, including (at this time) a COVID-19 vaccine: The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) authorizes the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) to provide benefits to certain individuals or estates of individuals who sustain a covered serious physical injury as the direct result of the administration or use of covered countermeasures identified in and administered or used under a PREP Act declaration. The CICP also may provide benefits to certain survivors of individuals who die as a direct result of the administration or use of such covered countermeasures. The PREP Act declaration for medical countermeasures against COVID-19 states that the covered countermeasures are: any antiviral, any drug, any biologic, any diagnostic, any other device, any respiratory protective device, or any vaccine manufactured, used, designed, developed, modified, licensed, or procured: a. to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat, or cure COVID–19, or the transmission of SARS–CoV–2 or a virus mutating therefrom; or b. to limit the harm that COVID–19, or the transmission of SARS–CoV–2 or a virus mutating therefrom, might otherwise cause; So it is incorrect to say that you would be unable to seek compensation if you were injured by Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. You would just have to seek compensation from the government rather than suing Pfizer. As noted in the other answers, this protection under the PREP Act will lapse by October 1, 2024. However, it is also entirely plausible that this vaccine will be recommended on a regular basis going forward, in which case it would end up being covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program instead. This program is designed to protect manufacturers of vaccines that are routinely administered to children and pregnant women, the idea being that the threat of costly lawsuits might otherwise dissuade manufacturers from making such vaccines. Your seasonal flu shot, for example, is covered under this program; if you sustained an injury from that shot, you would be able to file a claim for benefits under this program. If we end up in a situation where COVID-19 vaccines are required regularly for most people (which seems entirely plausible at this point), then I would wager that they would end up being folded into this program.