The fall season is almost upon us, and for universities around the country, this semester is challenging in ways that no other has been. The coronavirus is still a concern, and Notre Dame is the latest school to shut down its in-person classes because of health concerns.

It’s not just students who are risking their lives if they attend in-person classes. Professors are in danger, as are staff members such as janitors, cafeteria workers, on-campus healthcare workers, etc.

Maybe you got into a university, and you’re starting this year, or you’re returning to school. Either way, you should take a little time to think about the legal ramifications if you get sick, regardless of whether your school currently offers in-person classes or not.

Can You Sue if You Catch Covid-19 at School?

If you have something like a product liability lawsuit while attending a higher learning institute, your victory path is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is:

• Prove what product made you ill
• Get some expert testimony to back up your claim
• Collect the judgment that should come your way     

A case like catching Covid-19 at a university is a more complicated legal matter that will likely require the expertise of a personal injury attorney.  The short answer is that you could indeed sue a school if you contract the coronavirus while attending in-person classes there. 

What’s not so clear is whether you have any chance of winning.

The Difficulty of Winning this Court Battle

Perhaps in a few weeks or a couple of months down the line, we’ll see a class-action lawsuit from some students who:

• Caught Covid-19 from attending in-person university classes
• Are now experiencing some severe health problems

Because the coronavirus impacts people differently, it would be unrealistic to say that young people who get it at school will all recover with no ill effects. Some of them might have preexisting conditions.

Besides, not all college students are 18 or 19 years old. There are plenty of older adults who attend university classes, as well.

If one of these class-action lawsuits hits the courts, or even if a single student tries to sue the school, they will likely find it an uphill struggle. To have a chance, they would have to prove that they caught the coronavirus in class or at a university-sanctioned event.

That would be almost impossible to do. Contact tracing is in place, but you wouldn’t be able to say definitely that you caught it in class, at a basketball game, or anywhere else, since you’re probably moving freely back and forth between many other locations.

The School Will Deny Liability

The university will look for the lawsuit’s dismissal in short order, and the court would probably grant them that. To win this type of suit, you would have to prove negligence. The school would argue that even if they allowed classes to take place, you should have known about the potential risk that you were taking.

It’s hard to argue with that logic, either. Everyone knows about the coronavirus and what it can do at this point unless you’ve been living under a rock for the first half of 2020.

Also, it seems likely that even with universities that allow in-person classes to take place, before too long, they’ll probably make students sign something indemnifying the college of any wrongdoing if they catch Covid-19 there.

If you do end up signing something like that, then you won’t have a leg to stand on legally if you do catch it and want to sue.

Choose for Yourself

Like Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina, as we progress into the fall season, it’s a virtual guarantee that some schools will halt in-person classes, either for a while or for the entire semester. It’s going to be a mess, with administrators having to figure out how and whether to refund tuition money.

If you’re a student right now, then you need to think very hard about whether you want to attend in-person classes if your school offers them. Even if they do, getting your higher education isn’t worth it if it means putting your life on the line.

Also, you have to figure out that schools will offer online solutions. That’s not an ideal substitute for in-person classes, but this is an unprecedented circumstance, and everyone is doing the best they can.

If you’re going to class this year, take all precautions that you can and don’t rely on the law to help if you get sick. It’s just unrealistic.