In a month, a year, or even by the time this article is published, New Jersey’s dockets will be thick with COVID-19-related litigation like crabgrass in a suburban lawn. Some forms of this litigation will wilt away at the first sign of an energetic defense. Others will grow deep roots and be fixed parts of the landscape, with their own numbers on our Case Information Statement, sustaining some firms and lawyers for years. And still other cases could call for the creation of a vehicle akin to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. This article will speculate on how the virus that has paralyzed all of us for two months (and counting) will unleash waves of legal activity that will wash over the court system for decades.

The first and most devastating sites of COVID-19 infection were our nation’s nursing homes. From the early cases in Kirkland, Washington, to the dozens dead at the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey, no demographic group has suffered more in this pandemic than the elderly. As a result, the long-term care industry faces years of court battles.