Mealey's Coronavirus : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Coronavirus

February 25, 2025
Florida Panel Affirms Ruling In Insurer’s Favor In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

MIAMI — A Florida appeals panel on Feb. 19 affirmed a lower court’s judgment in favor of an insurer in an insured’s declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking coverage for its business interruption losses as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, concluding that nothing in the record supports the insured’s contention that the governmental shutdown orders “were issued ‘due to’ specific conditions at the premises of the Insured.”
February 25, 2025
Credit Agency Again Signals Settlement Despite Debtor’s Motion To Dismiss, Remand

RALEIGH, N.C. — A credit reporting agency on Feb. 24 filed a second notice of settlement in a North Carolina federal court stating that it and a borrower had executed a settlement agreement on Feb. 20 in the borrower’s lawsuit alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and requesting that the court vacate the Feb. 25 deadline to respond to the borrower’s motion to dismiss and remand to state court pending an expected stipulation of dismissal.
February 24, 2025
Insurers Ask Supreme Court To Decide Whether Tribal Court Can Exercise Jurisdiction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied insurers’ petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc asking it to reconsider its opinion that affirmed a federal court’s finding that a tribal court has subject matter jurisdiction over a COVID-19 coverage suit involving tribal properties on tribal land, the insurers filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to determine “whether a tribal court can exercise jurisdiction over nonmembers of the tribe based on off-reservation conduct.”
February 24, 2025
Supreme Court Denies Review Of Lifetime Ban On Sale Of Personal Protective Products

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 24 denied the petition for writ of certiorari of health and beauty product retailers seeking review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision affirming a California federal district court’s grant of the Federal Trade Commission’s motion for summary judgment and order permanently enjoining the retailers from selling personally protective goods and services because of the retailers’ shipping and refund practices in the face of severe product shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 24, 2025
Medical Transport Worker Seeking Wages For COVID Screening Survives Dismissal

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge denied in part and granted in part a motion to dismiss by a university medical center in a lawsuit brought by a former patient transport employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state wage laws seeking compensation for time spent being screened and tested for COVID-19 before her shift and for a week she went unpaid because of an interruption in a payroll system.
February 21, 2025
Rehab Company Seeks Refund Of Employee Retention Credits For COVID-19 Downturn

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Chicago area business filed suit against the federal government seeking income tax refunds totaling more than $500,000 for the tax years 2020 and 2021 representing employee retention credits (ERC) provided for as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to encourage employers to keep employees on their payrolls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 21, 2025
2nd Circuit Upholds Pension Ruling For NBA Ref Terminated Over Vaccine Requirement

NEW YORK — Issuing a Feb. 20 summary order in favor of a former NBA Services Corp. (NSC) referee who was terminated for not being vaccinated against COVID-19, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed that the termination meant he qualified for a pension payment of nearly $3 million even though he has a separate pending discrimination lawsuit over the termination.
February 21, 2025
Carnegie Mellon’s $4.8M Pandemic Closure Settlement Preliminarily Approved

PITTSBURGH — A federal judge in Pennsylvania granted preliminary approval of a $4.8 million settlement between Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and students who accuse the school of depriving them of the education and services for which they paid when it halted in-person learning in spring 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
February 21, 2025
Judge: Accommodating Workers’ Religious Objections To Vaccination An Undue Burden

EUGENE, Ore. — An Oregon federal judge granted the motion for summary judgment of a dental practice and its president in a lawsuit by former employees who were terminated for refusing a COVID-19 vaccination and alleged that the defendants failed to accommodate their religious beliefs in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and state law.
February 20, 2025
Washington City Employees Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccination Appeal Dismissal

SEATTLE — Several former city employees who were terminated after they refused to become vaccinated for COVID-19 filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking review of a decision of a Washington federal court, which granted the city and mayor’s motion to dismiss, having concluded that the employees were unable to establish that they experienced a violation of any fundamental rights that would create a cause of action against the city (Michael Brock, et al. v Bellingham, et al., No. 24-850, W.D. Wash.).
February 19, 2025
COVID-19 Treatment Patent Application Doesn’t Show Utility, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 18 said the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it upheld an examiner’s rejection of multiple claims of a patent application for a treatment for the viral infection that causes COVID-19, but the panel partly disagreed with the PTAB and the examiner’s reasoning.
February 19, 2025
Penn State’s $17 Million Pandemic Closure Class Settlement Given Final OK

PITTSBURGH — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Feb. 18 granted final approval of a $17 million class settlement between The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and students who accused the school of charging money for in-person education and on-campus access and services but failing to deliver them in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 19, 2025
Federal Judge Excludes Expert In Vaccine Mandate Case, Grants Summary Judgment

PHILADELPHIA — An expert retained by a group of former employees at a school who were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine cannot testify because the “misconstruction of the exhibits cited in his report undermine his reliability as it pertains to vaccine efficacy,” a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled, also granting summary judgment to the school.
February 19, 2025
Federal Judge Finds Investors’ Fraud Claims Fail To Meet Pleading Standards

MILWAUKEE — A federal judge in Wisconsin granted an energy-related products company’s motion to dismiss securities fraud claims brought by two pension funds, finding that the investors’ allegations of fraudulent nondisclosure surrounding the company’s COVID-19 pandemic-related gains and subsequent drop did not identify any false statements of material fact.
February 18, 2025
Federal Judge Right To Toss DNA Preservation Patent Suit, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California federal judge did not err during claim construction of the challenged phrase “reagent compartment” in a patent dispute involving COVID-19 testing products, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, affirming the judge’s decision to dismiss the suit based on the claim construction.
February 18, 2025
Survivors Appeal Qualified Immunity Ruling In COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Case

CAMDEN, N.J. — The survivors of former nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 filed a notice of appeal to the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking review of a decision by a New Jersey federal court that New Jersey’s governor and public health commissioner are entitled to qualified immunity in their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to nursing homes and granting the officials’ motion to dismiss.
February 18, 2025
Carnegie Mellon Students Seek Preliminary Approval Of $4.8M Pandemic Closure Pact

PITTSBURGH — Students who accuse Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) of depriving them of the education and services for which they paid when the school halted in-person learning in spring 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic filed a motion for preliminary approval of a $4.8 million settlement on Feb. 14.
February 13, 2025
Vaccination Exemption Suit Parties Seek Stay Pending Settlement Of Related Cases

DETROIT — A former employee of a health insurance company alleging that she was wrongly denied a religious exemption from the company’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy and the company on Feb. 12 filed a joint request to stay and a notice from a Michigan federal judge presiding over discovery in several different but related cases ordering a 75-day stay in those cases and ordering that the parties file notifications of the stay order with all judges in the same federal district presiding over the related cases.
February 12, 2025
Lab Asks Court To Reconsider Dismissal Of Some Of Its COVID Test Repayment Claims

NEWARK, N.J. — In a lawsuit seeking reimbursement from health insurers for COVID-19 testing, a medical testing laboratory moved a New Jersey federal court for reconsideration of its order dismissing the lab’s claims based on retroactive assignments of rights by beneficiaries of plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, distinguishing precedent the court cited and dismissing its breach of implied contract claims, arguing that it was for the jury to determine whether the insurer’s direct reimbursements early in the pandemic were sufficient to allege a course of conduct.
February 12, 2025
Dismissal Of Student’s Contract Claims Over Vaccine Requirement Flip-Flop Reversed

BOSTON — A Massachusetts appellate court panel on Feb. 11 affirmed in part and reversed in part the decision of a state trial court dismissing breach of contract and related claims of a former law school student who alleges that he attended the school on the promise that he would not be required to show proof of vaccination but was disenrolled prior to his second year for refusing to become vaccinated for COVID-19, ruling that the student plausibly pleaded a breach of contract claim.
February 10, 2025
CFPB Orders Honda Finance To Pay $12.8M For COVID-19 Credit-Reporting Failures

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pursuant to a stipulation and consent to the issuance of a consent order executed by American Honda Finance Corp., the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has ordered the company to pay $10.3 million to redress credit customers whom the finance company reported as being delinquent during the COVID-19 pandemic when they should have been reported as current and to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty.
February 07, 2025
Survivors Of University Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation Renew Contract Claims

NEWARK, N.J. — The estate and parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in COVID-19 isolation during the school year filed an amended complaint against a university on Feb. 6 alleging breach of contract and of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing after a New Jersey federal court dismissed wrongful death and negligence claims based on the statute of limitations and a fraudulent concealment claim and their original contract claims as deficiently pleaded.
February 06, 2025
Workers: 1 Class Properly Certified, 3 Others Should Be Too In Vaccine Mandate Case

NEW ORLEANS — A trial court properly certified a class of customer-facing workers who sought religious accommodations from United Airlines Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine policy and were place on unpaid leave for an indefinite amount of time, but the court erred by leaving certain workers outside of the certified class and by denying certification of three other proposed classes, United Airlines workers argue in an appellee/cross-appellant brief filed in the Fifth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals.
February 05, 2025
Debtor Claiming Dinged Credit From COVID Accommodation Seeks Remand To State Court

RALEIGH, N.C. — One day after a credit reporting agency filed a notice in a North Carolina federal court stating that it and a borrower had reached a settlement of all of the borrower’s claims against the agency, including violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the borrower on Feb. 4 moved the court to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for remand to state court.
February 05, 2025
City Employees Failed To Identify Fundamental Rights Violated By Vaccine Mandate

SEATTLE — A Washington federal court granted the motion to dismiss of a city and its mayor and dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by several employees who were terminated after they refused to become vaccinated for COVID-19, concluding that the employees were unable to establish that they experienced a violation of any fundamental rights that would create a cause of action against the city.