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Legal Roundtable Discusses Worker Safety During COVID-19 Pandemic

April 29th's Legal Roundtable discussion featured Bill Freivogel, Catherine Hanaway and Mark Smith.
EVIE HEMPHILL | ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO

The coronavirus pandemic has upended American life, and with that comes a host of legal questions — questions now being tackled by St. Louis-area lawyers in both state and federal court. 

Does your employer have an obligation to protect you from COVID-19? A group of workers at a Missouri pork processing plant have sued over that very question. Does the government have the right to make you stay home? An Illinois state representative won a preliminary legal victory over his own governor suggesting that maybe, unless certain procedures are followed, it does not. And should China bear responsibility for COVID-19 spreading across the globe? Missouri’s attorney general thinks so; .

On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske talked about these cases and more with legal experts: Mark Smith, an attorney and associate vice chancellor and dean for career services at Washington University; Bill Freivogel, an attorney and professor for the School of Journalism at Southern Illinois University Carbondale; and Catherine Hanaway, a partner at Husch Blackwell, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri and former speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives.

Hear the conversation:

” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by and produced by , , , and Joshua Phelps. The audio engineer is .

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Alex is the executive producer of "St. Louis on the Air" at © 2024 .
Sarah Fenske served as host of St. Louis on the Air from July 2019 until June 2022. Before that, she spent twenty years in newspapers, working as a reporter, columnist and editor in Cleveland, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and St. Louis.