The Purpose of Tort Law

At least 634 employees at a pork processing plant in South Dakota have tested positive for COVID-19. Now, workers say the company waited too long to communicate the risks of possible exposure and take action. https://t.co/Lfpc4ejpjb

— NPR (@NPR) April 18, 2020

...is to make people whole who have suffered injuries they should not have suffered.  Torts got a bad reputation because conservatives attacked it decades ago, complaining about "free money" given to injured plaintiffs who didn't "earn" it.  Probably the iconic case was the McDonald's hot coffee case, when a woman received a hot cup of coffee (isn't coffee supposed to be hot?) and spilled it in her lap (she got it at a drive-up window).  But the woman suffered third-degree burns (good thing she didn't sip it first?), because McDonald's heated the water as hot as possible (under pressure, to raise the temperature above the boiling point) so as to extract as much coffee beverage from the grounds as possible.

McDonald's did it, in other words, to make money.  Without tort law, they could have dumped those costs on as many customers as were willing to take the risk or, in ignorance, to run the risk.  McDonald's was endangering its customers in order to make money for McDonald's.  That's the kind of injury, and shfiting costs to others, that tort law is meant to rectify and prevent.  It's not some concept cooked up by "plaintiff's lawyers" in the late 20th century; it has roots that run deep in English common law.

There is discussion now of businesses demanding they be held harmless for opening their doors and calling back their employees to "re-open" the country, as Trump keeps demanding.  They want to be protected in case they become "hot spots" for the coronavirus.  But the question is:  why should the employees bear the burden of the business decision to re-open?  If they refuse to return to work, someone else will take their job.  But should anyone take a job and bear the burden of the virus and even death, so the business can improve its bottom line again at no risk whatsoever?  We like to think businesses would not be so cruel, so mercenary; and then 634 employees at a pork processing plant test positive for the disease that is ravaging the world.

What is the price we are willing to pay, and why?  Perhaps more importantly, who are we willing to have pay that price?