U.S. Judge Finds China Liable for Covid Missteps, Imposes $24 Billion Penalty

A federal judge in Missouri found the Chinese government responsible for covering up the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and hoarding protective equipment in a ruling on Friday. He entered a judgment of more than $24 billion that Missouri officials vowed to enforce by seizing Chinese assets.

The lawsuit, filed by the Missouri attorney general’s office in April 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, accused the Chinese government of withholding information about the existence and spread of the virus and then of cutting off the supply of personal protective equipment, or P.P.E., from the rest of the world. Chinese officials said Friday that they did not accept the judge’s decision.

In his ruling, Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. wrote that “China was misleading the world about the dangers and scope of the Covid-19 pandemic” and had “engaged in monopolistic actions to hoard P.P.E.” Those actions, he said, hampered the early response to the pandemic in the United States and made it impossible to purchase enough equipment for medical providers responding to the virus.

Judge Limbaugh, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, imposed the judgment against China, its governing Communist Party, local governments in China, as well as a health agency and a laboratory in the country.

Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, said in a statement that the ruling held China accountable for its actions.

“China refused to show up to court, but that doesn’t mean they get away with causing untold suffering and economic devastation,” said Mr. Bailey, a Republican. “We intend to collect every penny by seizing Chinese-owned assets, including Missouri farmland.”

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said his government will not recognize the judgment.

“The so-called lawsuit has no basis in fact, law or international precedence,” he said in a statement. “China does not and will not accept it. If China’s interests are harmed, we will firmly take reciprocal countermeasures according to international law.”

It was not immediately clear how or when Missouri officials might move to seize Chinese assets, including land, as they pledged to do. Mr. Bailey’s office said it could seek assistance from the Trump administration in identifying and taking those assets.

Judge Limbaugh, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, initially dismissed Missouri’s lawsuit. But the case was returned to him by an appellate court, and he held a bench trial in January at the federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau, Mo. No one argued on behalf of China at the hearing.

Foreign governments can be sued in American courts, though the circumstances under which those lawsuits can proceed are sharply limited by a measure known as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. In his earlier dismissal ruling, Judge Limbaugh said that Missouri’s lawsuit was unable to move forward because of that act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said one of Missouri’s claims, about the hoarding of P.P.E., was not excluded by that act, and sent that portion of the case back to the district court.

Such cases have been tested in American courts before. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit filed by New York City against India and Mongolia to move forward, rejecting those countries’ claims of immunity under the foreign sovereign act.

Judge Limbaugh said Missouri’s lawyers showed that China knew that the virus was spreading — and that it was spreading from person to person — long before it shared that information with the world. He also said Missouri showed that China took steps to nationalize American factories in China to produce protective equipment, which limited the supply available for export and drove up prices in places like Missouri. The judge noted that Covid-19 was the third-leading cause of death in Missouri in 2020 and 2021.

Senator Eric Schmitt, who was Missouri’s attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, celebrated the judgment on social media on Friday.

“When I was AG in Missouri,” wrote Mr. Schmitt, a Republican, “I sued China for unleashing Covid on the world.” He added that “Missouri can now seize assets.”