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Article Courtesy of WFLA
News Channel 8
By Christine McLarty
Published May 20, 2020
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TARPON SPRINGS – The HOA President of The Villas of Cypress West in Tarpon
Springs reached out to 8 On Your Side for help. concerned they could be held
liable if they reopen their pool and someone gets coronavirus.
8 On Your Side asked two different lawyers and got two different answers.
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“It’s Florida, it’s
getting hot and we want to be able to use our pool!” said
homeowner Kathy Church.
8 On Your Side reached out to Real Estate and Small Business
Attorney Micheal Kouskoutis to ask if the HOA board could be
held liable if someone gets sick and he said no.
“I just don’t know how you could prove someone got a virus
from there,” said Attorney Kouskoutis. “How can you prove
that you got the virus at that pool and not at Publix or
pumping gas,” he said.
To be sure, 8 On Your Side reached out to
another law firm and we were surprised to get a different
answer. |
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“While the ultimate answer is ‘It depends,’ I think ultimately the answer
could be yes,” said Morgan and Morgan Attorney Max Karrick.
We asked him why we may be getting conflicting answers and Karrick says it’s
because coronavirus is new territory for all of us, lawyers included.
“We’re in new waters and we’re trying to navigate that,” Karrick said.
While the HOA board could get sued Attorney Kouskoutis doesn’t think it will
hold up in court.
“You could find a lawyer to sue for just about anything, so…” said Attorney
Kouskoutis.
We told the HOA President their answers and Witkowski said they’re going to
take the plunge with precautions.
“We’re going to reopen anyways because we’re getting mixed signals now!” she
said.
Church said she and others living in the community have agreed to take turns
volunteering to disinfect the pool and make sure pool-goers are staying
socially distant and are also encouraging everyone coming to the pool to
bring their own sanitizer and disinfectant to use before and after they
touch anything on the pool deck.
“Definitely we’re excited for the pool to reopen,” said Church. “I don’t
mind volunteering at all!”
“We’re certainly as capable of sanitizing as we are paying for someone else
to do it,” said Witkowski. “We’ll buy the right equipment, the right
disinfectant and we’ll take care of it and we’ll take care of each other,”
she said.
One of the lawyers gave us a printed out document from the U.S. Masters
Swimming association that said the regular amount of chlorine in any pool is
enough to kill coronavirus in the water.
Witkowski said they’ll spend the weekend getting volunteers trained on how
to properly disinfect the rest of the area and they’ll open early next week.
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