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Mealey's Coronavirus

  • April 01, 2026

    7th Circuit Receives Illinois High Court Ruling On Pre-Shift COVID-19 Screening

    CHICAGO — Having received a response from the Illinois Supreme Court in the negative as to whether the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL) incorporates the federal Portal-to-Portal Act (PPA) amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) so as to exclude certain pre-shift activities, such as screening for COVID-19, from compensable time, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals directed the parties to file statements about what action the court should take to complete the resolution of the appeal.

  • March 31, 2026

    Pollution And Contamination Exclusion Bars Coverage For COVID-19 Losses, Panel Says

    HOUSTON — An additional insured is not entitled to coverage for business interruption losses caused by quarantine orders issued in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic because the commercial property policy’s pollution and contamination exclusion bars coverage, the 14th Texas Court of Appeals said March 31 in affirming a trial court’s ruling in favor of the insurer on breach of contract and extracontractual claims.

  • March 30, 2026

    High Court Denies Review Of Role Of Independent Contractor Payments In PPP Loan

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 30 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari by a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan recipient seeking review of a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel decision that affirmed a Louisiana federal court ruling upholding the refusal by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to forgive a portion of a loan that had been based on payments the loan recipient made to its independent contractors the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • March 30, 2026

    Judge Refuses To Reconsider Excluding Union Members From COVID-Grant Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Concluding that a labor union had failed to identify either clear error or manifest injustice in his ruling that excepted union members in Alaska and Jackson County, Ohio, from a grant of a preliminary injunction to block the mass termination of grants provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a District of Columbia federal judge denied the union’s motion for partial reconsideration.

  • March 30, 2026

    Stay Extended In States’ Suit To Block Termination Of COVID-Related Grants

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Pursuant to a joint motion of the parties, a Rhode Island federal judge extended until April 10 an existing stay in a lawsuit by several states seeking to block the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing a March 2025 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.

  • March 30, 2026

    Would-Be Intervenors In Challenge To CDC Vaccine Changes File Notice Of Appeal

    BOSTON — A children’s advocacy group known for questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccinations and others who claim that their interests are not properly protected by the parties in a challenge to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changes to vaccine recommendations and makeup of a vaccine advisory panel filed a notice of appeal to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking review of a Massachusetts federal court’s rulings denying their motion to intervene and granting a preliminary injunction.

  • March 24, 2026

    Client Alleges That Payroll Service Firm Improperly Retained CARES Act Tax Credits

    PHOENIX — A business sued an employment services organization with which it contracted for payroll tax services for breach of contract, claiming that the organization retained for three years Employee Retention Credits (ERC) that the business earned and did not pay it additional interest that accrued during the time the organization retained the ERCs.

  • March 24, 2026

    Supreme Court Denies Review Of School COVID-19 Policy Critic’s Free Speech Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 23 declined to review a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s affirmance of a Michigan federal district court ruling that school officials’ communications to the employer of a school parent and the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the parent’s criticism of a Michigan school district’s COVID-19 policy did not constitute adverse actions in violation of the parent’s free speech rights.

  • March 23, 2026

    High Court Hears Arguments On Whether Ballots May Be Received After Election Day

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 23 heard arguments as to whether a COVID-era Mississippi state law providing that mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day may be received by the registrar within five days of Election Day and still be valid is, as the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found, preempted by federal law governing elections and the definition of Election Day (Michael Watson v. Republican National Committee, et al., No. 24-1260, U.S. Sup.).

  • March 23, 2026

    High Court Denies Police Officers’ Petition To Review COVID Shot Data Suit Toss

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 23 denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed by current and former police officers asking to address a circuit split regarding discovery and determine if a decision in an early 20th century smallpox case “should be limited or overturned in favor of a tiers-of-scrutiny approach in assessing First Amendment religious discrimination claims” while challenging the dismissal of claims that collection of their COVID-19 testing results and vaccination statuses violated federal and state law.

  • March 23, 2026

    Plaintiffs Alleging Injuries From COVID Countermeasures Appeal Dismissal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several individuals whose family members were treated during the COVID-19 pandemic with and allegedly died as a direct result of certain countermeasures such as hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin on March 20 filed a notice of appeal in a Washington federal court seeking review by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of the lower court’s ruling that the family members had not plausibly alleged that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was applying an incorrect standard for eligibility for Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP) benefits.

  • March 20, 2026

    Parties Agree To Dismiss ADA ‘Regarded As’ Claim Based On COVID Vaccination Status

    PITTSBURGH — The parties filed a stipulation of dismissal on March 19 in a lawsuit brought by a former employee under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claiming that her employer failed to accommodate what it perceived as the medical disability of being immunocompromised after she refused to become vaccinated for COVID-19.

  • March 18, 2026

    Settlement Reached In Suit For Refund Of CARES Act Employee Retention Credits

    BALTIMORE — In a lawsuit by a Maryland beauty salon seeking a refund of employee retention credits (ERC) it claims it earned under the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economy Security (CARES) Act because of having suffered declines in gross receipts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Maryland federal magistrate judge on March 17 approved the parties’ status report indicating that they had reached a settlement but needed additional time to resolve the case.

  • March 18, 2026

    Challenge To SBA Denial Of PPP Loan Forgiveness Stayed Pending High Court Rulings

    PHILADELPHIA — The parties having jointly requested an administrative stay pending resolution of two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court addressing whether, for the purposes of Paycheck Protection Act (PPP) loan forgiveness, payments by a business to independent contractors should be included in the calculation of the business’ payroll costs, a Pennsylvania federal judge on March 17 stayed and administratively closed a PPP loan recipient’s suit alleging that the Small Business Administration (SBA) acted unlawfully in denying its PPP loan forgiveness application.

  • March 18, 2026

    Fired Employee Who Refused COVID Shot Settles With Employer After New Trial Grant

    CHICAGO — A transit authority and its former employee have reached a settlement in the employee’s lawsuit seeking damages for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stemming from his termination for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 after an Illinois federal judge granted a new trial because he had failed to include a mixed-motive jury instruction on the issue of a transit authority’s motivation for terminating the employee.

  • March 18, 2026

    2nd Circuit Finds No Clear Error In LTD Ruling Involving Purported Long COVID

    NEW YORK — Saying in part that it found no error “in the district court’s decision to assign minimal weight to [the claimant]’s self-reported symptoms and to focus, instead, on the paucity of objective record evidence supporting her claimed inability to work,” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a March 17 summary order affirming judgment for a long-term disability (LTD) plan administrator that denied a claim that was based on a nurse practitioner’s purported symptoms of long COVID.

  • March 18, 2026

    Judge Refuses To Dismiss Restaurants’ Amended Complaint In Coronavirus Coverage Suit

    DURHAM, N.C. — Three months after granting a commercial property insurer’s motion to dismiss claims for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unfair and deceptive trade practices brought by four Durham restaurants seeking coverage for their business interruption losses arising from the lockdowns prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, a federal judge in North Carolina denied the insurer’s motion to dismiss the insureds’ amended complaint because it now includes facts that make the claims plausible to the extent that they are based on the insurer’s conduct since the North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling in N. State Deli, LLC v. Cincinnati Ins. Co.

  • March 17, 2026

    Federal Judge Stays CDC’s Changes To Recommended Vaccine Schedule, Advisory Panel

    BOSTON — Finding that physicians’ professional groups and others are likely to prevail in their challenge to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) changes to vaccine recommendations and the reconstitution of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) as violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a Massachusetts federal judge on March 16 stayed both a January U.S. Department of Health and Human Services memorandum announcing the reduction of the recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11 and the appointment of 13 new ACIP members.

  • March 17, 2026

    PPP Loan Recipient Sues SBA To Challenge Eligibility-Based Denial Of Forgiveness

    HOUSTON — A sole proprietorship filed an amended complaint against the Small Business Administration and its administrator to challenge as a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act the SBA’s denial of forgiveness of a $367,296 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan based on the proprietorship’s ineligibility for a PPP loan.

  • March 16, 2026

    6th Circuit Sanctions Attorneys $30,000 For AI Errors In COVID-Protest Appeal

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 13 imposed $30,000 in sanctions for “rampant misconduct,” including fake citations and representations of law, while affirming lower court sanctions and other rulings in consolidated appeals stemming from a defamation and free speech dispute that started with a protest at a fireworks show held under COVID-19 restrictions.

  • March 16, 2026

    Insurer’s $30M Overpayment Counterclaim Against COVID Testing Lab Dismissed In Part

    NEWARK, N.J. — In a lawsuit brought by a medical testing lab seeking reimbursement from health insurers for COVID-19 testing, a New Jersey federal judge on March 13 dismissed state law counterclaims by the insurers related to fraudulent overbilling with prejudice and counterclaims based on duplicative billing and billing for ancillary tests without prejudice but left in place overpayment claims sought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

  • March 12, 2026

    Indiana High Court: Health Care Providers Immune From Suit In COVID-Related Death

    INDIANAPOLIS — A unanimous Indiana Supreme Court held that a trial court may bypass a medical review panel in a malpractice case and rule on an affirmative defense that does not require an expert opinion and further found that health care providers, while negligent in the treatment of a bed sore developed by a COVID-19 patient that ultimately proved fatal, were immune from civil liability under state and federal law.

  • March 11, 2026

    Certification Of 1 Subclass In COVID-19 Vaccine Case Against United Upheld

    NEW ORLEANS — A partially divided Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a trial court’s certification of only one subclass out of several proposed classes and subclasses in a case by workers who accuse United Airlines Inc. of discrimination by failing to provide religious and medical accommodations, finding no abuse of discretion in the certification only of employees who sought an accommodation due to religious beliefs and were accommodated with unpaid leave.

  • March 10, 2026

    2nd Circuit Denies Mandamus Challenge To Recusal Denial In COVID Testing Fraud Row

    NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a mandate denying a motion to stay and related petition for a writ of mandamus challenging lower court proceedings in which a judge denied recusal in qui tam suits alleging that the lab and related parties violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by submitting false claims to government insurers for reimbursement for COVID-19 testing services.

  • March 09, 2026

    Government: Tax Anti-Injunction Act Bars COVID-Era Relief Sought By Taxpayer

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — In a lawsuit brought by a taxpayer seeking to compel the Internal Revenue Service to process its claim of employee retention credits (ERC) it says it is owed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and apply the credits to its tax liability, the government moved to dismiss with prejudice the taxpayer’s second amended complaint, telling a Connecticut federal court that all of the relief the taxpayer seeks is barred by statute.