On March 15, 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert Elijah hugged his coworker, Juan Martinez, in a PATH employee locker room after resolving an argument. Neither wore masks. Martinez had been experiencing symptoms he described as resembling a head cold—dizziness, coughing, heavy breathing, and headaches—though as a smoker, he considered seasonal coughs normal.

The next day, Martinez's symptoms worsened, and PATH sent both men home to quarantine for fourteen days. Martinez sought COVID-19 testing at a hospital, but the facility lost his test results. He treated his symptoms at home with over-the-counter medications, believing he had a seasonal cold. No one else in his household developed symptoms.

Elijah became symptomatic toward the end of his second quarantine week. He was admitted to Bayshore Memorial Hospital on April 3, 2020, where he tested negative for COVID-19 three times but was diagnosed with influenza A, pneumonia, insulin-dependent diabetes, and an acute respiratory infection. Despite treatment, Elijah died in April 2020. His death certificate listed the cause as "respiratory distress, secondary to COVID-19."

Elijah's widow filed a wrongful death lawsuit under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), claiming PATH negligently exposed her husband to COVID-19 by instructing workers not to wear masks unless performing specific job functions.

FELA vs. Workers' Compensation: Different Standards of Proof

Understanding the difference between FELA and workers' compensation is crucial to analyzing this case.

Workers' Compensation is a no-fault system. Employees need only prove their injury arose out of and in the course of employment. The standard focuses on whether there's a work connection, not employer negligence. The burden of proof is typically "by a preponderance of the evidence," and causation standards are generally more relaxed.
FELA, by contrast, is a negligence-based statute. While FELA plaintiffs benefit from a relaxed causation standard—needing to show employer negligence played "any part, even the slightest" in causing injury—they must still prove traditional negligence elements: duty, breach, foreseeability, and causation. Critically, FELA is not strict liability. The plaintiff must demonstrate the employer was actually negligent.

As the court noted, quoting federal precedent, a trial court can dismiss a FELA case only in "extremely rare instances where there is a zero probability either of employer negligence or that any such negligence contributed to the injury."

However, this relaxed causation standard doesn't eliminate the plaintiff's obligation to provide competent evidence of both medical causation and the applicable standard of care.

The Challenge of Proving COVID-19 Work-Related Claims

COVID-19 cases present unique evidentiary challenges that this decision highlights:

Multiple Potential Exposures: Unlike a workplace injury from machinery or a slip-and-fall, COVID-19 exposure can occur anywhere. Elijah continued using public transportation, shopping at grocery stores and Costco, and interacting with the public despite his concerns about the virus.
Testing Limitations: Early pandemic testing was unreliable. Martinez never received his initial test results after the hospital lost them. His August 2020 antibody test showed prior infection but couldn't pinpoint when. Elijah tested negative three times at the hospital despite his death certificate attributing his death to COVID-19.
Incubation Period Uncertainty: The timing between exposure and symptom onset made causation difficult to establish with certainty.
Overlapping Symptoms: Elijah was diagnosed with multiple conditions—influenza A, pneumonia, diabetes complications, and respiratory infection—making it difficult to isolate COVID-19 as the definitive cause of death.
Novel Disease: In March 2020, medical understanding of COVID-19 was evolving rapidly, making it difficult to establish clear workplace safety standards.

Required Evidence and the Court's Analysis

The court granted summary judgment for PATH based on three critical evidentiary failures:

1. Failure to Establish Medical Causation
The plaintiff's epidemiologist, Dr. Edward Peters, opined it was "highly probable" Elijah contracted COVID-19 from Martinez. However, Dr. Peters admitted he could not "say with any certainty" this was the transmission source, acknowledging "you can't have any high degree of certainty ... which [contact] is the smoking gun."
The court found this opinion constituted an inadmissible "net opinion"—a bare conclusion unsupported by factual evidence. Key problems included:

Martinez never received a confirmed positive COVID-19 diagnosis in March 2020
No one in Martinez's household developed symptoms or tested positive
Martinez's August antibody test couldn't rule out infection during the intervening months
Dr. Peters failed to adequately account for Elijah's numerous other potential exposures

The court also excluded Elijah's death certificate under New Jersey Rule of Evidence 808, finding it represented a complex medical opinion requiring testimony from its author, who was unavailable. The death certificate's attribution of death to COVID-19 directly contradicted Elijah's three negative hospital tests and influenza A diagnosis.
Notably, the plaintiff called no treating physicians and no medical expert beyond the epidemiologist.
2. Failure to Establish Standard of Care
The court determined that expert testimony was required to establish the applicable workplace safety standard during the early pandemic period. This wasn't a case where "a layperson's common knowledge is sufficient to permit a jury to find that the duty of care has been breached."
The court reasoned that in March 2020, COVID-19 understanding was in its "relative infancy," and the appropriate standard of care for PPE use "was not 'relatively commonplace and ordinary.'" Without expert testimony, the jury would have had to speculate about what standards PATH should have followed.
Critically, Dr. Peters—qualified only as an epidemiologist—testified that PATH "was adhering to the guidelines that were issued by the CDC" and acknowledged these were the "prevailing public health authority." The court had previously barred Dr. Peters from opining on what PATH should have done because he lacked expertise in workplace safety, industrial hygiene, or occupational health.
The plaintiff presented no expert in workplace safety, industrial hygiene, or any related field to establish that PATH's policies deviated from the applicable standard of care.
3. The Net Opinion Doctrine
Throughout its analysis, the court emphasized the "net opinion" doctrine, which prohibits expert testimony consisting of bare conclusions without adequate factual support or explanation of methodology.
The court found Dr. Peters' causation opinion speculative because:

He couldn't definitively link Martinez's antibodies to March 2020 infection
He failed to adequately address Elijah's multiple other potential exposures
His conclusion required the jury to accept assumptions rather than established facts

Key Takeaways for COVID-19 Work Claims

This decision offers several important lessons:

1. Document Everything: Martinez's lost test results proved fatal to establishing he had COVID-19 when he hugged Elijah. Contemporary medical records are essential.
2. Medical Expert Testimony is Crucial: An epidemiologist alone is insufficient. Plaintiffs need treating physicians or medical experts who can definitively establish both that the deceased had COVID-19 and that workplace exposure was the source.
3. Death Certificates Aren't Enough: Even when a death certificate attributes death to COVID-19, courts will exclude it as hearsay without testimony from the certifying physician explaining the basis for that conclusion.
4. Rule Out Alternative Exposures: When a person continues using public transportation, shopping, and engaging in public activities, proving workplace transmission becomes extremely difficult without eliminating other potential sources.
5. Workplace Safety Experts Required: In novel situations like early pandemic workplace policies, courts won't allow juries to apply common sense alone. Expert testimony establishing the applicable standard of care is mandatory.
6. CDC Guidelines Matter: Compliance with CDC guidelines, while not dispositive, creates a strong defense when no expert can establish a higher applicable standard.
7. Timing Is Critical: The earlier in the pandemic the alleged exposure occurred, the harder it becomes to establish clear standards of care, as guidance was evolving rapidly.
8. FELA's Relaxed Causation Standard Has Limits: While FELA plaintiffs benefit from needing to show only that negligence played "any part, even the slightest" in causing injury, they must still present competent evidence that meets evidentiary standards. Speculation isn't enough.

The Expert Needed to Elaborate

The expert asked the jury to accept a specific transmission event as the cause while failing to adequately address or eliminate numerous other plausible exposures.

"Dr. Peters admitted that this individual who admittedly was so [g]ung ho about masks, would get on trains, would go out before the alleged incident in question, was exposed to people on the PATH going between stops, going to work, coming home, and[ ] yet, [Dr. Peters] concluded that [Elijah] must have contracted COVID[-19] from this one instance when he was in the locker room with ... Martinez."

The lack of comprehensive national data on work-related COVID-19 deaths represents a significant gap in occupational health surveillance and underscores the challenges faced in cases like Elijah v. PATH.

Elijah v. Port Authority Transhudson Corporation, DOCKET NO. A-2335-23DOCKET NO. A-2335-23, 2025 WL 2794335 (NJ App. Div. 2025) Unpublished Opinion

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