Buddy Mincey's 2020 Law Prevents Parents from Suing if Students Were Harmed by Covid-19 Mitigation Policies
Parents and voters deserve the truth.
Remember when Louisiana school children were forced to wear masks in school, social distance, contact trace, and stay home for days and weeks if a “close contact” tested positive?
That was not because of ties to federal funding. No, no. That was because of a law passed in 2020 that required BESE to adopt Covid-19 mitigation policies and procedures so that schools could supposedly avoid civil liability.
The bill had to be the absolute worst piece of legislation passed in 2020.
The bill author and candidate for the senate seat in District 13, State Representative Buddy Mincey, claims the bill did not require mandates but as we pointed out at the time, that is exactly what the bill did.
What Mincey refuses to acknowledge is the bill created a tort situation in that teachers could be sued if they DID NOT FOLLOW the covid mitigation guidelines adopted by BESE or any policies adopted by a federal or state health agency!!
Do not miss this: prior to this legislation, school employees were not responsible for transmission of a respiratory virus on campus, nor should they be. Mincey’s Law made them legally responsible UNLESS they followed mitigation policies adopted by BESE which included masking, social distancing, contact tracing, or WHATEVER they adopted. To be clear: this legislation could have enacted a vaccine mandate if a vaccine policy had been adopted by LDH through admisntraive rule change, which they attempted in 2021. The language of Mincey’s Law leaves it open-ended so that ANY policy adopted by BESE or federal or state agency had to be followed for teachers to be free from civil liability.
I can understand why Mincey would not want to take credit for this legislation, but his assertion that his bill did not require mandates and did not require masks is simply not true. As a result of Mincey’s Law, BESE met on July 14, 2020, to hear recommendations from Louisiana Department of Health. The recommendations LDH provided came straight from the CDC. We sent a letter to BESE prior to the meeting, addressing very real concerns regarding the safety of any mitigation policies adopted. The entire 16 page letter can be read HERE. We wanted PROOF that any mitigation policies adopted for every student in Louisiana had been deemed SAFE.
During the BESE meeting, a claim made by State Health Officer, Dr. Joseph Kanter, caused us great concern. He stated that the guidance provided by LDH was based on evidence based guidelines from the CDC. We knew this statement to be false as there was no “evidence-based” data to support things like social distancing and masking, then or now.
Knowing the statement to be false, we sent ANOTHER letter to BESE requesting the “evidence-based” data Dr. Kanter asserted the guideance was based on.
Please note: BESE never provided evidence to support Kanter’s claim - neither did LDH after a public records request - and BESE was never able to provide evidence that the policies being implemented in schools across the state were SAFE. In fact, Executive Counsel for the Louisiana Department of Education, Joan Hunt, stated in an email that they were simply following the law as passed by the Louisiana Legislature, Mincey’s Law. The email exchange can be found below:
The last question I asked in the email above was never answered. The evidence of safety we requested was never provided. BESE adopted guidelines under the false premise that they were “evidenced-based” and did not have to prove otherwise because they were simply following the law, Mincey’s Law.
As a result of the implementation of the law, hundreds of thousands of school children across the state were forced to mask for hours on end, and even so, sent home countless times if a “close contact” tested positive.
This is the point I want to drive home about Mincey’s Law: BESE was required by law to adopt Covid-19 mitigation policies and if these policies were followed, the schools would be absolved of ANY civil liability, BUT if the policies were followed as stipulated by law and children were harmed by the policies, PARENTS CANNOT SUE FOR HARM CAUSED TO THEIR CHILDREN BY THE POLICIES. For example, if studies determine years from now that masking causes significant lung damage, parents cannot sue the school or school system.
If I were Buddy Mincey, I would want to paint a positive light on this law, too, because in reality it is absolutely horrrendous. The cold hard truth is that his law created a tort situation that did not exist before which made teachers and schools liable if they did not follow the policies, and at the same time, shields teachers and schools from lawsuits for adopting policies that were never proven to be SAFE for the hundreds of thousands of children who were forced to abide by them.
We believe parents and voters in Senate District 13 deserve to know the truth about Mincey’s Law.
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