Bill Text: NY S01227 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Requires each place of employment to develop a business safety plan to provide reasonable and adequate protection from a pandemic disease for all employees and people who lawfully frequent such places; provides that employers who develop and follow safety plans are not liable for damages to employees or patrons due to disease during a pandemic.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 2-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2024-01-03 - REFERRED TO LABOR [S01227 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-S01227-Introduced.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________

                                          1227

                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions

                    IN SENATE

                                    January 10, 2023
                                       ___________

        Introduced  by  Sen.  ORTT  --  read twice and ordered printed, and when
          printed to be committed to the Committee on Labor

        AN ACT to amend the labor law and  the  workers'  compensation  law,  in
          relation  to  liability  of  businesses  for damages associated with a
          pandemic

          The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and  Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:

     1    Section  1.  Section  200  of the labor law is amended by adding a new
     2  subdivision 5 to read as follows:
     3    5. In the event of a pandemic, as declared by the World Health  Organ-
     4  ization, all places to which this chapter applies shall, within fourteen
     5  days  of  the first confirmed case in New York state, develop a business
     6  safety plan to continue  operations,  which  shall  contain  a  plan  to
     7  provide reasonable and adequate protection from the pandemic disease for
     8  all persons employed therein or lawfully frequenting such places. In the
     9  event  that  a  person employed therein or who lawfully frequents such a
    10  place contracts the pandemic disease, the owners  or  employers  of  any
    11  place  to  which  this  chapter  applies shall not be liable for damages
    12  associated with contracting the pandemic disease if all of the following
    13  conditions are met:
    14    (a) the place possessed a completed business safety plan;
    15    (b) the place complied with its business safety plan;
    16    (c) the business safety plan  reasonably  protected  persons  employed
    17  therein and persons who frequent the place; and
    18    (d) the owners or employers of the workplace were not otherwise gross-
    19  ly negligent.
    20    §  2. Subdivision 15 of section 2 of the workers' compensation law, as
    21  added by chapter 659 of the laws of 1984, is amended to read as follows:
    22    15. "Occupational disease" means a disease resulting from  the  nature
    23  of  employment  and  contracted  therein.  Such  term  shall not include
    24  diseases contracted in a pandemic as declared by the World Health Organ-
    25  ization when the employer acted in accordance  with  the  provisions  of
    26  subdivision five of section two hundred of the labor law.
    27    § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD04717-01-3