Collect documents!
Receipts, emails, letters received, screenshots, recordings and photos. Maybe they seem useless now, but every piece will count when the panic is over, and you will be looking for one to pay for the damage done.
These days, when coronavirus panic is overwhelming, and not only individuals, but big companies and even governments are drowning and tossing about in a rush search for a better emergency response, it’s easy to forget about tomorrow. Yet tomorrow someone will have to pay. For your lost business, income or job, for economic loss or health problems (be it unrelated to the virus or otherwise). For the products you didn’t get and services you didn’t receive. For the lifestyle you left behind.
When the heads are cooled down, panic is gone and the real consequences revealed, wherever you would try to give the blame, you’ll encounter some solid resistance. No one would want to pay. On the contrary, there will be those coming after you and your money: debts you owe, services you were unable to pay for, even troubles caused because of your angry or worrisome actions (if any). Tenants who didn’t pay rent or internet bills, parents and ex-spouses who withheld support payments, buyers who failed to respect their obligations to pay instalments — many will suffer and start passing this suffering further onto those who caused this inability to pay in time. Many will come to lawyers only to realize that much (if not everything) depends on their ability to prove the damage caused.
You paid for medication or some medical-related services? You needed urgent repairs? You had stress, depression, pain? You lost your joy of life (due to the facilities closed or because you simply could not afford those any more)? You lost your market share, your clients, your subcontractors, your contracts? Yes, you did, but have you collected proof?
Do remember, under the law, the fact that you suffered some injury (material or immaterial) is not enough. You will need to show the monetary value of this injury, the fault of those who caused it and — sometimes the most difficult part — you will have to prove that one really and directly was caused by another. Therefore, let us finish where we started: be prepared, think of tomorrow, keep documents!
