The daughter of an elderly couple who died of Covid has filed a wrongful death suit against a Salem assisted living facility, but on Monday the facility claimed it was immune from suits because of a federal law designed to protect front-line workers in an emergency.

The facility’s legal strategy is being used nationally to protect senior care centers from Covid-related suits, but while backed somewhat by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, federal courts have mainly rejected it.

Linda Barron filed her complaint on June 28 in Rockingham County Superior Court against Greystone Farm at Salem — owned by the Waltham, Mass.-based Benchmark Senior Living LLC — on behalf of the estates of her deceased parents, Leo and Anna Barron, who were both admitted to the facility in 2018. The couple, according to several reports following their deaths which were within three days of each other, had been suffering from dementia just around the same time, after nearly 60 years of marriage and after some 25 years of ballroom dancing.

Her suit, filed by Ryan Russman, an Exeter attorney, charged the assisted facility of “routinely (emphasis in the filing) and negligently administered care to Leo and Anna Barron, interacted with them and entered their room without utilizing required PPE, if any at all.”

On Aug, 15, Benchmark filed a motion with U.S. District Court in Concord, arguing that the litigation be moved to federal court. He argued that state negligence laws were totally exempted because of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, a 2005 law that grants immunity in times of emergency to front-line workers and other entities who deploy approved countermeasures.

— BOB SANDERS