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

Mealey's Coronavirus

October 01, 2024
School District Absolved In Retaliation Suit By Parent Critical Of COVID-19 Policy

DETROIT — A Michigan federal judge on Sept. 30 granted the motion for summary judgment of a Michigan school district and individual school board members in a lawsuit charging that the board members’ responses to a parent’s criticism of the district’s COVID-19 policy were retaliatory and in violation of the parent’s First Amendment free speech rights, finding that the actions of the board members did not constitute adverse actions that would deter the exercise of free speech rights.
September 30, 2024
Alaska High Court Sides With ‘Overwhelming Majority’ In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

ANCHORAGE, Ala. — Finding “no reason to differ from the overwhelming majority” in answering “no” to two certified questions from an Alaska federal court, the Alaska Supreme Court held Sept. 27 that neither the presence of the coronavirus at an insured’s property nor operating restrictions that were imposed on an insured property by pandemic-prompted governmental orders constitute “direct physical loss of or damage to” the insured property to trigger coverage.
September 30, 2024
Challenge To COVID-Era Federal Vaccination Mandates Dismissed As Moot

CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge granted the federal government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by four individuals claiming that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s executive orders requiring COVID-19 vaccines for federal employees and contractors violated their constitutional rights, ruling that the action was moot and that exceptions to mootness that might preserve the lawsuit’s viability did not apply.
September 30, 2024
Judge Approves $3M Securities Settlement For Misleading COVID-19 Treatment Claims

NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge granted final approval of a $3 million settlement including $750,000 in attorney fees to resolve a securities class action against a pharmaceutical company for deceiving shareholders by making misleading statements about the prospects of its product for the successful treatment of COVID-19.
September 27, 2024
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Reverses Coverage Ruling In Dentist’s Coronavirus Suit

PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Sept. 26 held that a dental practice insured is not entitled to commercial property insurance coverage for its financial losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s nonessential business shutdown orders because its covered properties did not incur any physical loss or damage, reversing a Pennsylvania Superior Court majority’s ruling and ordering the case remanded for the trial court to enter summary judgment in favor of the insurer.
September 27, 2024
No Coverage Owed For Tavern Owner, Pennsylvania High Court Rules In COVID-19 Suit

PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a one-page order issued Sept. 26 affirmed a Pennsylvania Superior Court reversal of a lower court’s ruling in favor of a tavern owner insured in a coronavirus coverage dispute, citing the high court’s reasoning in Ungarean v. CNA, et al. that addressed the same issue on the same day.
September 27, 2024
Panel Denies Insurer’s Petition For Interlocutory Appeal In Coronavirus Dispute

DALLAS — A Texas appeals panel denied a commercial property insurer’s petition for an interlocutory appeal of a partial summary judgment order in a coronavirus coverage dispute, finding that an immediate appeal “would not materially advance the ultimate resolution of the case.”
September 26, 2024
Rehearing En Banc Denied To Seller Ordered To Refund $14.6M In COVID-Era PPE Sales

ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 25 denied rehearing en banc to a personal protective equipment (PPE) retailer after a divided panel affirmed a Missouri federal court’s order permanently enjoining the retailer from any further sales of PPE and ordering it to turn over $14,651,185.42 to the Federal Trade Commission to be used as equitable relief for failing to fulfill orders within the retailer’s advertised timeframe during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 26, 2024
False Claims Act Suit By Former Employee Claiming PPP Loan Fraud Evades Dismissal

SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge on Sept. 25 declined to dismiss a lawsuit brought on behalf of the United States under the False Claims Act (FCA) by a financial officer alleging that the company that formerly employed him received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan during the COVID-19 pandemic by altering or misrepresenting its payroll records, finding that the officer sufficiently pleaded that false statements were knowingly made on the PPP application and that the officer appeared to be the original source of the information.
September 25, 2024
Judge Refuses To Dismiss Breach Of Contract Claim In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied “all risk” insurers’ motion to dismiss a breach of contract claim in a lawsuit filed by a holding company for the U.S. interests in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group alleging the “Special Perils Provision” in an endorsement of the policies provided coverage for its $14 million in business interruption/interference losses caused by infectious or contagious diseases that were “manifested by any person within a 5-mile radius of” its four hotels in Boston, New York, Miami and Washington, D.C., finding the insured plausibly alleged that its losses were covered by the endorsement.
September 23, 2024
California High Court Tosses Certified Question Following COVID-19 Coverage Ruling

SAN FRANCISCO — In light of the recent ruling in John's Grill, Inc. v. The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., the California Supreme Court dismissed its consideration of a certified question from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asking whether an insurance policy’s virus exclusion is unenforceable in a coverage lawsuit brought by owners, operators and managers of two Napa Valley, Calif., restaurants in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
September 23, 2024
Removal Of COVID-19 Suit By Senior Home Was Premature Without Amount In Controversy

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — In a lawsuit filed by the estate of a woman who died in a senior living facility during the COVID-19 pandemic alleging negligence on the part of the facility, a New York federal judge granted the estate’s motion to remand to state court because the amount in controversy was not stated or otherwise determinable, thereby nullifying diversity jurisdiction.
September 23, 2024
Catholic University’s $2M Coronavirus Closure Settlement Preliminarily OK’d

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia granted preliminary approval of a $2 million class settlement reached between a student and The Catholic University of America over claims that the school failed to provide students with the full value of their education in spring 2020 when the school, like many others around the country, closed its campus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
September 20, 2024
COVID-19 Test Lab Cannot Sue For Payments From Firm It Agreed Not To Bill

CHICAGO — Finding that no reasonable construction of a contract between a testing lab and a skilled nursing facility would impose an obligation on the nursing facility to pay the lab for COVID-19 testing for its employees, an Illinois federal judge granted the nursing facility’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the lab seeking payment of a bill under an agreement that expressly stated that it would seek insurance information from the nursing facility but not bill it for testing.
September 20, 2024
Preliminary Approval Of $40M Settlement Sought In Securities Fraud Class Suit

BALTIMORE — Lead plaintiffs in a securities fraud class suit filed against a COVID-19 vaccine contractor that experienced contamination issues at its Bayview, Md., manufacturing facility and several of its executives seek preliminary approval of a $40 million settlement reached between the parties.
September 19, 2024
Judge Denies Summary Judgment On Issue Of Contamination Exclusion’s Applicability

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge refused to grant summary judgment in favor of an insured on the applicability of a policy’s contamination exclusion to losses sustained by the insured in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic because the evidence could support a jury finding that the insured believed that the contamination exclusion would apply as a bar to coverage for the losses caused by the coronavirus.
September 18, 2024
No Coverage Owed For Footwear Chain’s Coronavirus Losses, Illinois Panel Affirms

CHICAGO — An Illinois appeals court panel on Sept. 17 affirmed a lower court’s grant of a commercial property insurer’s motion to dismiss the owner of retail footwear chain DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse’s breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking coverage for its losses arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that the policy’s “law and ordinance” and “contamination” exclusions bar coverage.
September 17, 2024
9th Circuit Denies Insurers’ Petition For Rehearing In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

SEATTLE —The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 16 denied insurers’ petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc asking it to reconsider its Feb. 29 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, but with a dissenting judge saying that “this case cried out for rehearing en banc.”
September 17, 2024
Injunction Not Warranted For Parent Barred From School Grounds During COVID-19

ST. LOUIS — A panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of an Iowa federal court, which denied a preliminary injunction to a school parent who sued a school district alleging deprivation of his First Amendment rights in sending him a notice of trespass preventing him from attending school board meetings because of his allegedly disruptive and threatening behavior in protest of the board’s masking and vaccination policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 12, 2024
Rehearing Denied After 6th Circuit Reinstates Worker’s Pandemic Bias Claims

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a one-page order denied a petition for rehearing en banc filed by Lampo Group LLC, the company of radio personality Dave Ramsey, after a panel partially reversed a trial court’s dismissal of claims by an employee who alleges that the company failed to take precautions against the spread of COVID-19 during the initial days of the coronavirus pandemic.
September 11, 2024
Federal Contractor’s Suit Seeks Refund Of Over $3.5M In Employee Retention Credits

BALTIMORE — A federal contractor has filed a lawsuit against the federal government seeking a tax refund of $3,568,706.52 in employee retention credits (ERC) that were authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for businesses suffering a significant decline in gross receipts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 11, 2024
Penn State Agrees To $17M Class Settlement In Students’ Pandemic Closure Case

PITTSBURGH — Students who accuse The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) 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 reached a $17 million class settlement with the school and moved for preliminary approval of the deal in a Pennsylvania federal court.
September 10, 2024
Suit Alleging Damaged Credit Despite COVID Accommodation Survives Motion To Dismiss

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge accepted in full the report and recommendations of a magistrate judge, granting in part and denying in part a motion of a credit reporting agency to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a borrower alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) after he received an accommodation on an auto loan during the COVID-19 pandemic and expected his account to be reported as current.
September 10, 2024
Panel Refuses To Reconsider Ruling In Insurer’s Favor In Suit Prompted By Pandemic

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reconsider its ruling that affirmed a federal court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of an insured in its breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 09, 2024
Judge Grants Dismissal In Part In FCA Violation Suit Over COVID-19 Test Billing

NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge on Sept. 6 granted in part a motion to dismiss filed by a COVID-19 testing provider in a qui tam suit alleging False Claim Act (FCA) violations and violations of a similar New Jersey state law related to improper billing for COVID-19 tests, granting the motion because the provider is not an original source but denying it because the amended complaint satisfies the pleading standard and because “the claims are not barred by the” FCA limitations and are not unconstitutional.