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Mealey's Coronavirus

October 18, 2024
At Least 7 Recent ERISA Putative Class Actions Target Tobacco Surcharges

In the past month, at least seven putative class actions targeting surcharges that tobacco or nicotine users allegedly must pay to maintain health insurance have been filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
October 17, 2024
Federal Judge Dismisses Philadelphia Eagles’ COVID-19 Suit Against Insurer

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Oct. 16 dismissed a lawsuit brought by the owner and operator of the Philadelphia Eagles football organization seeking a declaration as to coverage for its alleged losses arising from the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the court is bound by Ungarean v. CAN & Valley Forge Ins. Co. that was recently decided by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
October 16, 2024
Ex-Employee Whose COVID- Related Suit Was Tossed For Not Filing With EEOC Appeals

MINNEAPOLIS — A former hospital employee who accepted a religious exemption from COVID-19 vaccination but was then terminated for refusing to wear an N95 mask as required by hospital policy filed a notice of appeal on Oct. 15 to the Eight Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of a Minnesota federal judge’s order dismissing the employee’s religious discrimination lawsuit for failure to exhaust her administrative remedies.
October 15, 2024
5th Circuit: PPP Applicant Timely Notified By Lender As To Depletion Of Funds

NEW ORLEANS — A panel of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment of a Louisiana federal court dismissing the amended complaint of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) applicant alleging that its lender bank violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) in failing to update the applicant as to the status of its loan within the legally required notice period, during which PPP loan funds had been exhausted, thereby denying the applicant of PPP benefits.
October 15, 2024
Temple University Agrees To $6.9M Class Settlement In Pandemic Closure Suit

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia university has agreed to pay $6.9 million to end a consolidated class complaint by students accusing the school of unjust enrichment and breaching its implied contractual duty to provide in-person education and access to campus services when it shut its doors in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to an unopposed motion for preliminary settlement approval filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania.
October 14, 2024
Borrower’s UCL, Elder Abuse Claims Over Potential Foreclosure Partly Dismissed

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge in California on Oct. 11 granted in part and denied in part a lender’s motion to dismiss claims brought against it for financial elder abuse and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by a borrower who claims that during the coronavirus pandemic, the lender obstructed her efforts to modify her loan or obtain a reverse mortgage, leading her to potential foreclosure.
October 14, 2024
Privacy Claims Over Health Care Provider’s Use Of Facebook Pixel May Proceed

OAKLAND, Calif. — Mostly denying a health care organization’s motion to dismiss putative class privacy claims against it, a California federal judge found that a plaintiff sufficiently alleged most of her claims that the defendant’s use of Facebook Pixel to forward URLs and other information from her use of the company’s website to the social media company violates California law and the state’s constitution.
October 10, 2024
Job Staffing Company Seeks $5.15M In Tax Refunds For Pandemic Employee Retention

CINCINNATI — An Ohio employment staffing company has filed suit against the federal government seeking to collect a tax refund totaling more than $5.15 million it claims it is owed in employee retention tax credits as provided for by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
October 10, 2024
Borrowers Claiming Damaged Credit Despite COVID-19 Forbearance Settle With Lender

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Mortgage borrowers and their lender on Oct. 9 filed a stipulation to dismiss with prejudice in a California federal court, having settled the borrowers’ lawsuit alleging violations of state and federal credit reporting statutes that led to the borrowers’ credit score being damaged from their loan having been reported as past due after they entered into a repayment plan following four months of forbearance.
October 10, 2024
9th Circuit Unseals Driver’s Brief Challenging GEICO’s ‘Unfair’ COVID-19 Rebates

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unsealed a brief filed by a driver appealing a federal judge’s grant of summary judgment on her class action claim for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) to GEICO for allegedly unfairly retaining an estimated $238 million in additional premium relief the driver says it owed insureds after the COVID-19 pandemic.
October 09, 2024
Bound By Another Planet, Judge Reconsiders Ruling Against Insurer In COVID-19 Suit

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge on Oct. 8 granted an insurer’s motion to reconsider the court’s ruling that denied its motion for partial judgment on the pleadings in Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s breach of contract lawsuit arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, dismissing with prejudice Live Nation’s claims for coverage that require a showing of physical loss or damage after concluding that the court is bound by the holding in Another Planet Entertainment, LLC v. Vigilant Insurance Co. that a “bare allegation” that “the actual or potential presence of the COVID-19 virus rendered [plaintiff's] property unusable for its intended purpose” is insufficient to demonstrate physical loss or damage to the insured property.
October 09, 2024
3rd Circuit Refuses To Rehear Consolidated Appeals In COVID-19 Coverage Suits

PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 8 denied insureds’ petition seeking rehearing en banc of a panel’s rejection of 14 consolidated appeals of lower federal courts’ dismissals of the insureds’ lawsuits seeking coverage for their business interruption losses caused by the coronavirus and the subsequent shutdown orders, standing by the panel’s holding that the insureds’ loss of use of their properties’ intended business purposes is not a physical loss of property to trigger business income or extra expense under their respective policies.
October 08, 2024
9th Circuit Grants Restaurants’ Motion To Dismiss Appeal In COVID-19 Coverage Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 7 granted a motion by owners, operators and managers of two Napa Valley, Calif., restaurants to dismiss their appeal in a coronavirus coverage dispute after the California Supreme Court dismissed its consideration of the Ninth Circuit’s certified question asking whether an insurance policy’s virus exclusion is unenforceable.
October 03, 2024
Critic Of School’s COVID-19 Policy Appeals Loss In 1st Amendment Retaliation Suit

DETROIT — A parent who sued a Michigan school district and individual school board members alleging that their responses to her criticism of the district’s COVID-19 policy were retaliatory and in violation of her First Amendment free speech rights on Oct. 2 filed a notice of appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a Michigan federal court granted summary judgment in favor of the district and board members, having found that their responses did not constitute adverse actions that would violate her free speech rights.
October 02, 2024
Many, But Not All, Claims Against Airlines By Mask Rejecting Passenger Dismissed

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge dismissed several claims against a group of airlines based on the most “legally adventurous” theories of an airline passenger who could not wear a mask as required by the federal transportation mask mandate during the COVID-19 pandemic but declined to dismiss claims under the California Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh Act) and the Rehabilitation Act.
October 02, 2024
English Appellate Court Rules Against Reinsurer In COVID-19 ‘Catastrophe’ Case

LONDON — Rejecting both main arguments a reinsurer advanced in a dispute over business interruption losses, a panel of the Court of Appeal of England and Walesagreed with a lower court’s ruling that under the reinsurance agreement, the COVID-19 pandemic is a “catastrophe” and an “Hours Clause” doesn’t exclude individual losses that continue to develop more than 168 hours after they first occur.
October 01, 2024
Insurers Again Rebut Lab’s Effort To Establish ERISA Standing For Testing Repayment

NEWARK, N.J. — After a New Jersey federal judge allowed a medical testing laboratory seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 testing from two insurers to amend its complaint, concluding that further amendment could resolve a question of whether the laboratory has derivative standing under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the insurers moved a third time to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
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.