A Walmart employee from Evergreen Park, Illinois, passed away from COVID-19 complications on March 23, 2020. Now his family is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the largest employer in the United States.
Wando Evans had worked at the Walmart in Evergreen Park since 2005. He worked overnights in stock and maintenance. In early March, Evans mentioned to his supervisor that he was experiencing symptoms that were consistent with the novel coronavirus. For two full weeks, Evans continued to work his overnight shifts, and his managers “largely ignored” his health complaints, according to court filings in Cook County Circuit Court.
The Evergreen Park Walmart store management sent Evans home from work on March 23. He was found dead at his house two days later, on March 25. Mr. Evans was 51 years old.
The family’s lawsuit accuses Walmart of negligence. In the court documents, the allegations state that the store management failed to sanitize and clean the store sufficiently to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. They also claim that the store did not implement and enforce the social distancing guidelines encouraged by the state of Illinois.
The Walmart had not provided masks, latex gloves, wipes, or antibacterial soaps to its employees. Another worker at that same Evergreen Park Walmart passed away four days after Wando Evans, and also due to complications from COVID-19.
The attorney for Evans’ family, Tony Kalogerakos, said the following in a public statement:
“The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has designated Walmart stores as ‘high-volume retailers,’ making them responsible for taking additional precautions to protect employees and customers from the spread of COVID-19. At a minimum, they were responsible for notifying store workers that a colleague had symptoms consistent with COVID-19, providing their employees personal protective equipment such as masks and latex gloves, implementing social distancing, and sending exposed employees home until cleared by medical professionals.”
Kalogerakos’s law firm is trying to get OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to investigate Walmart’s actions at the Illinois location and elsewhere.
According to Evans’ family, none of his co-workers knew he had symptoms. These co-workers contacted the family after his death and encouraged them to take legal action to prevent this from happening to other workers.
Walmart announced temperature checks and other precautionary measures on March 31. The company released a statement saying they have taken additional steps across the US to protect workers and customers.
Elsewhere in retail, workers have gone on strike to press for additional protections as “essential workers.”
Whether Walmart will be held accountable in Evans’ family’s wrongful death suit is yet to be seen.
Elsewhere, some companies are fighting the stay-at-home orders surrounding COVID-19. In Colorado, Hobby Lobby has defied the Colorado Attorney General’s order to close stores. The state AG wrote that Hobby Lobby is not a “critical business,” and therefore its employees are not “essential workers.”
That designation, of “essential” and “non-essential” workers, looks like it will be a central pillar of many of these lawsuits.
We will be following these wrongful death lawsuits closely, as precedent in personal injury law is likely to be established in these cases.
At this point, closures of retail locations are being handled on a state-by-state basis. Later in May 2020, some states are expected to loosen their recommendations on store closures. Some states, particularly Georgia, have started to lift the closure orders, and are beginning to designate many more types of business as “essential.”