As the only law review in our state, the West Virginia Law Review takes seriously its obligation to serve both academia and our state’s legal community. We serve those interests by publishing articles that are nationally relevant along with articles that address issues in West Virginia. Historically, this Law Review has published special issues such as the National Coal Issue and the Energy and Sustainability Issue, reflecting the unquestioned importance of those areas of law to our state. However, we recognize that our state’s legal community is well-served by academic analysis of all areas of law. We also recognize that research specific to West Virginia can be difficult to find through major commercial avenues. Launched by Volume 117, the West Virginia Law Review is proud to publish the West Virginia Law Review Online.
J. William St. Clair & Robert Deal |
This article is located on the West Virginia Law Review Online repository at the following link: read the full article here.
Ryan Shymansky*
122 W. Va. L. Rev. Online 3
* Judicial Clerk to the Hon. Robert C. Chambers, United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. A.B. Georgetown University (2016); J.D. Georgetown University Law Center (2019). Many thanks to the editors of the West Virginia Law Review who have worked so diligently to prepare this Article for publication. The coronavirus pandemic is constantly evolving, and any information contained here is likely to be outdated the moment that this Article is published. For up-to-date information on the outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) maintains an active record of information related to the novel coronavirus on its website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html. As is likely self-evident, all opinions contained in this Article are mine alone.
On December 31, 2019, health authorities in Wuhan, China, confirmed that an unidentified pathogen was the likely cause of twenty-seven recent cases of pneumonia identified across the region.[1] Just a week later, internal and external pressures forced Chinese authorities to announce the discovery of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan.[2] Despite efforts at containment, the virus jumped from Wuhan to countries across the globe in the following months.[3] By January 21, 2020, the United States had confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus in Washington state.[4] The virus spread rapidly across the continent, resulting in thousands of infections and hundreds of fatalities before the end of March.[5] Federal, state, and local governments responded with varying degrees of efficiency and efficacy, generally stressing the value of “social distancing” in slowing the spread of the disease to afford hospitals precious time to respond to new cases.[6] Private and public institutions largely shuttered, with universities sending students home to their parents and restaurants switching to takeout-only models.[7] Medium-to-large gatherings of any sort were discouraged or banned,[8] and some grocery store shelves were left empty.[9]
The history of the ideas and practices underlying workers’ compensation laws is varied. While many commentators attribute their origins to Prussian Germany in the latter half of the 1800s,[1] others have found early models of scheduled payments for loss of body parts under Hammurabi’s Code, which provided a set of rewards for injuries and their permanent impairments.[2] Regardless of when (or where) they began, workers’ compensation laws often have a unifying feature: in exchange for compensating an employee for work-related injuries without examination of fault, the employer is entitled to immunity from being sued under common law.[3] This quid pro quo concept has a significant role in employment discrimination cases.
The West Virginia Law Review Online also invites the submission of unsolicited manuscripts from both practitioners and academics to be considered for publication. The West Virginia Law Review Online welcomes articles, essays, and book reviews concerning legal issues that are particularly relevant to the state of West Virginia and its surrounding region.
Submissions for the Law Review Online should be limited to 5,000 words or less including footnotes.
The Law Review Online accepts submissions either electronically or in hard copy form. Electronic submissions should be sent in Microsoft Word format to the West Virginia Law Review at:
