Confirming the growing split of decisions among federal courts addressing COVID-19 insurance issues, two district courts in the Fifth Circuit differed in their interpretation of virus exclusions, with one denying coverage and the other permitting the policyholder’s claim to proceed.
On November 4, a Mississippi federal district court dismissed a restaurant’s complaint for business interruption
A North Carolina court has required Cincinnati Insurance Company to provide business interruption and extra expense coverage to 16 North Carolina restaurants that lost the use of and access to their properties due to COVID-19 civil authority orders (see North State Deli, LLC, et al. v. Cincinnati Insurance Co. et al.). The court agreed
The Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has rejected efforts to centralize pretrial proceedings in actions in Pennsylvania and Illinois seeking insurance coverage for business interruption losses resulting from COVID-19. The request for MDL-status was hotly contested, with insureds in more than 175 coverage actions responding to the centralization motions. Some insureds supported centralization in either Pennsylvania