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Mealey's Coronavirus

  • August 28, 2025

    Municipalities, Labor Union Seek Summary Judgment On COVID Grant Terminations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of municipalities and a labor union on Aug. 27 moved a District of Columbia federal court for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its acting director alleging that the mass termination of federal grants that were a response to the COVID-19 pandemic is unlawful.

  • August 28, 2025

    Jury’s Award Partially Upheld In Pandemic Speech Case; New Trial For 1 Claim

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut partially denied a renewed motion for judgment notwithstanding a jury verdict or for a new trial filed by a Connecticut school board and principal after a jury awarded a Connecticut teacher $1.1 million on her claims that she was subjected to retaliation and defamation after making public comments and social media comments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic; the judge left in place $475,000 awarded for a retaliation claim brought under state law and a defamation claim and ordered a new trial on the teacher’s retaliation claim brought under federal law.

  • August 26, 2025

    North Carolina High Court Allows Bars To Sue For Lost Income Caused By Lockdowns

    RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina bar owners who say that lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic violated their right to earn a living can sue the state and seek monetary damages, a divided North Carolina Supreme Court held, affirming a judgment of a state appeals court that found that a trial court order properly denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

  • August 25, 2025

    Split High Court Stays District Court Vacatur Of Health Research Grant Terminations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court granted the federal government’s application for a stay of a Massachusetts federal district court order that voided the termination by the National Institutes of Health of several public health grants, including funding for COVID-related research, but left in place for now that part of the lower court order invalidating several policies that spurred the terminations.

  • August 22, 2025

    Vaccine Refuser Who Court Found Failed To Make Out Discrimination Claim Appeals

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment to an employer in a former employee’s lawsuit stemming from her termination for declining to become vaccinated for COVID-19, having found that the employee failed to establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate her religious beliefs or of racial discrimination, the employee on Aug. 21 filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • August 22, 2025

    Hospital Says Vaccine Mandate Not State Act, Did Not Violate Constitutional Rights

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Arguing that it is not a state actor and that former employees’ constitutional rights were not violated, a university health system moved to dismiss the second amended complaint of former employees alleging violations of their constitutional rights to “bodily autonomy, medical privacy and equal protection” caused by the health system’s mandatory COVID-19 policy and seeking damages under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code.

  • August 21, 2025

    No Contract Existed Between University And Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation

    NEWARK, N.J. — Finding that the parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university COVID-19 isolation dormitory failed to allege the existence of a valid contract between the student and the university, a New Jersey federal judge on Aug. 20 granted the university’s motion and dismissed with prejudice the parents’ lawsuit seeking damages for breach of contract.

  • August 21, 2025

    Further Stay Denied In Lawsuit Seeking Final Determination On PPP Loan Forgiveness

    FORT WORTH, Texas — In a lawsuit by a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan recipient alleging wrongdoing on the part of the lender in arranging the loan and partly denying loan forgiveness and seeking a final determination on forgiveness from the Small Business Administration (SBA), a Texas federal court denied the loan recipient’s motion for a further stay to appeal the SBA’s final forgiveness determination to the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals and ordered the loan recipient to file an amended complaint by Sept. 15.

  • August 20, 2025

    5th Circuit Reverses ‘Quorum Clause’ Ruling That Enjoined Pregnant Workers Act

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority found that a constitutional “quorum clause” does not require U.S. Congress members to be physically present to make up a voting quorum, reversing and vacating a Texas federal judge’s ruling that the clause required physical presence and trumped a COVID-19-era rule that allowed voting by proxy during the passage of federal legislation that established the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).

  • August 20, 2025

    5th Circuit Remands Louisiana Dock Operator’s Claims Over COVID-19 Vaccine Firing

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a Louisiana dock operator who was fired for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine after denial of a religious exemption request presented “sufficient evidence” to pursue claims of religious discrimination and disparate treatment, reversing and remanding the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to his former employer.

  • August 19, 2025

    Parties Seek Summary Judgment In Resort Employee’s COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Case

    CAMDEN, N.J. — In a lawsuit alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) stemming from the refusal of a resort employee with a history of negative reactions to vaccines and other medications to become vaccinated for COVID-19 under the resort’s mandatory vaccination policy and denial of a medical exemption, the resort moved for summary judgment and the employee moved for partial summary judgment.

  • August 14, 2025

    Law Student Blaming COVID Data Fraud For Disenrollment Loses Appeal In 1st Circuit

    BOSTON — Finding that a former law student who alleged that his disenrollment from law school resulted from his refusal to be vaccinated pursuant to a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy that was implemented based on allegedly fraudulent COVID-19 data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by officials of Massachusetts and other states had “failed to identify any infirmity in the district court’s standing reasoning,” a panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a per curiam judgment affirmed a Massachusetts federal court ruling dismissing the case for lack of standing.

  • August 14, 2025

    9th Circuit En Banc Majority Affirms Order Backing School District Vaccine Policy

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals en banc majority ruled that a Los Angeles school district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy was subject to review and survives under scrutiny because the district “could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students” in affirming the trial court’s order granting the district’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.

  • August 12, 2025

    Shutdown Orders Caused Insured’s Losses, Not Pandemic, Minnesota Panel Says, Reverses

    ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota appeals panel on Aug. 11 reversed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a commercial property insurer in an insured’s coverage dispute arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, ruling that the governmental orders that shut down 150 of the insured’s health and fitness clubs in response to the pandemic are the causes of the insured’s losses for purposes of determining the number of occurrences subject to the policy’s “Interruption By Communicable Disease” coverage limit.

  • August 12, 2025

    Lab’s Motion To Reconsider Partial Dismissal Of COVID Test Repayment Claims Denied

    NEWARK, N.J. — In a lawsuit seeking reimbursement from health insurers for COVID-19 testing, a New Jersey judge on Aug. 11 denied a medical testing laboratory’s motion for reconsideration of her order dismissing claims based on retroactive assignments of rights by beneficiaries of plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and breach of implied contract claims.

  • August 12, 2025

    Employees Amend Complaint Alleging Vaccine Mandate Violated Constitutional Rights

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — After a Connecticut federal judge granted a university health system’s motion to dismiss, finding that former employees alleging violations of their constitutional rights to “bodily autonomy, medical privacy and equal protection” caused by the health system’s mandatory COVID-19 policy and seeking damages under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code had failed to demonstrate that the health system was a state actor, the employees filed a second amended complaint.

  • August 07, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms SBA PPP Loan Forgiveness Denial Based On Initial Ineligibility

    NEW ORLEANS — Finding that “[n]either text nor common sense” justifies Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness sought by a Texas truck dealer, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Aug. 6 affirmed the judgment of a Texas federal court upholding the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) determination that the dealer was not initially eligible for the PPP loan it received and thus ineligible for loan forgiveness.

  • August 07, 2025

    COVID-Era Iowa School Board Meeting Free Speech Case Reportedly Settles

    CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Pursuant to a joint notice of settlement filed by the parties, an Iowa federal judge on Aug. 6 suspended pending deadlines and closed for statistical purposes a case brought by a school parent alleging that a school board and several school district staff members deprived him of his First Amendment rights in banning him from attending school board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, directing the parties to file closing documents for dismissal or a written status report within 30 days.

  • August 06, 2025

    4th Circuit Panel Upholds SBA Denial Of CARES Act Relief For 6-Time Modified Loan

    RICHMOND, Va. — A Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the judgment of a Virginia federal court, which granted the summary judgment motion of the Small Business Administration (SBA) in a lawsuit alleging that the agency’s denial of COVID-19-related relief payments for an SBA loan violated the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and was a violation of due process.

  • August 05, 2025

    Delta To Pay $8.1M For Executive Overpayments With COVID Assistance Funds

    ATLANTA — Pursuant to a joint stipulation, a Georgia federal judge dismissed a qui tam action alleging that an airline had falsely certified compliance with provisions of the Payroll Support Program, which provided financial support to the nation’s airlines during the COVID-19 pandemic, after the parties reached a settlement under which the airline was to pay to the government $8.1 million.

  • August 01, 2025

    6th Circuit Affirms Attorney Sanctions, Award Of Fees For Frivolous COVID-19 Suit

    CINCINNATI — Agreeing with an Ohio federal judge that, among other failings by attorneys representing dance studios challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s COVID-19 pandemic shutdown orders, a complaint filed by the attorneys was “haphazard” and “littered with factual and legal errors,” a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the judge’s order sanctioning the attorneys and directing them to pay attorney fees and costs to county health officials.

  • July 31, 2025

    HHS’s Appeal Of Block On Ending COVID-Related Grants Voluntarily Dismissed

    BOSTON — Pursuant to a motion by the federal government, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the government’s appeal seeking review of a Rhode Island federal district court grant of a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from implementing or enforcing a March 24 decision that terminated $11 billion in federal financial assistance used by states for public health emergency preparedness and other public health purposes as no longer necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic had ended.

  • July 31, 2025

    Federal Judge Upholds LTD Benefits Termination Under Residency Provision

    SEATTLE — Addressing cross-motions for judgment on the record on de novo review of a long-term disability (LDT) benefits dispute, a Washington federal judge upheld termination of benefits under an international residency provision despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic hit during the time at issue.

  • July 31, 2025

    University Of Pittsburgh’s $7.85M Pandemic Closure Class Settlement Approved

    PITTSBURGH — The University of Pittsburgh’s $7,850,000 class settlement to end a case by students who sued over the school’s failure to refund tuition and housing, dining and student fees paid for the spring 2020 semester when classes were moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic was granted final approval by a federal judge in Pennsylvania.

  • July 31, 2025

    Prima Facie Discrimination Case Not Established In COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Suit

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Finding that a former employee had failed to establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate her religious beliefs or of racial discrimination, a North Carolina federal judge granted the summary judgment motion of her employer in the employee’s lawsuit stemming from her termination for declining to become vaccinated for COVID-19.