business interruption insurance – Duane Morris Insurance Law

February 27, 2023November 29, 2023 by Max H. Stern

California Court of Appeal Disposes of COVID-19 Coverage Dispute After Discovery Reveals Cause of Business Income Losses

By Max H. Stern and Holden Benon

Late last week, the California Court of Appeal issued another COVID-19 business interruption decision reminding us that creative arguments do not win the day for policyholders in California. The true facts are decisive.

In Best Rest Motel, Inc. v. Sequoia Ins. Co., No. D079927, 2023 WL 2198660 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 24, 2023), the court upheld a trial court’s ruling on summary judgment, reasoning the policyholder could not show that its loss of business income was caused by “direct physical loss of or damage to property,” within the meaning of its commercial multi-peril insurance policy.

The policyholder, San Diego-based Best Rest Motel, Inc. argued that the presence of virus-infected droplets caused physical loss or damage rendering its property incapable of safely providing lodging to guests. Readers familiar with these issues may recognize this as an attempt to plead facts that fall within the “hypothetical scenario” posited in dicta by the court in Inns-by-the-Sea.

Continue reading “California Court of Appeal Disposes of COVID-19 Coverage Dispute After Discovery Reveals Cause of Business Income Losses”

March 11, 2022November 29, 2023 by Duane Morris

California’s Highest Court Rejects Inns-by-the-Sea’s Petition for Review

By Max H. Stern and Holden Benon

This week, the California Supreme Court declined to hear the Policyholder’s appeal of the Court of Appeal’s decision in The Inns by the Sea v. California Mutual Ins. Co., which we previously reported on. For those tracking the COVID-19 business interruption appellate landscape, this should come as no surprise. The Court of Appeal’s decision is well-reasoned, and it is aligned with many COVID-19 business interruption decisions across the nation that have reached very similar conclusions. Policyholder attorneys expressed it is “hard to feel hopeful at this point.” We can understand why.

December 28, 2021November 29, 2023 by Duane Morris

Carriers Enjoy Unanimous Success in Recent Wave of COVID-19 Business Interruption Decisions in Federal Appeals (Update)

By: Max H. Stern & Holden Benon

Recently, we began to see real decisions being made by the appellate courts on COVID-19 Business Interruption issues. The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have established a uniformly favorable trend for insurance carriers – these courts have affirmed the district court decisions that have ruled in favor of the insurers, and in one case, the Sixth Circuit vacated a district court’s decision that ruled in favor of the policyholder. Since our original blog post on this issue in October, this trend continued in December with a Tenth Circuit decision.

Ninth Circuit

Starting with the Ninth Circuit (where Duane Morris’ insurance group maintains a strong presence), carriers have enjoyed successful outcomes in a trio of much-anticipated decisions. In Mudpie, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Case No. 20-16858, 2021 WL 4486509, at *1 (9th Cir. Oct. 1, 2021) (applying California law), Mudpie, a San Francisco-based children’s store, brought a proposed class action asserting breach of contract and bad faith against its property insurance carrier. As in many COVID-19 business interruption cases, the carrier had denied its insured “Business Income” and “Extra Expense” coverage in 2020, after government authorities issued public health orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Id. at *2. (For more background on business interruption insurance, please refer to one of our earlier blog posts on this topic.)

Mudpie made the argument that its inability to use its premises amounted to “direct physical loss or damage to” its property, sufficient to bring its claim within the scope of the policy’s business interruption coverage. Id. The court rejected this argument, however, reasoning that the phrase “direct physical loss of or damage to” requires some kind of physical alteration to the property in question. Id. at *5. The court also held that the policy’s virus exclusion bars coverage for the insured’s claims. Id. at *7. As many policyholders have tried arguing, Mudpie claimed that its losses were not subject to the policy’s virus exclusion because its losses were caused not directly by the virus, but by stay-at-home orders that restricted the insured’s use of its property. But the court didn’t buy this argument because Mudpie failed to meet the “efficient proximate cause” test. Id. (“Mudpie does not plausibly allege that ‘the efficient cause,’ i.e., the one that set others in motion was anything other than the spread of the virus throughout California, or that the virus was merely a remote cause of its losses.”) (internal citation omitted). In the end, the court affirmed the district court’s decision ruling in favor of the insurer. Id. at *7.

Continue reading “Carriers Enjoy Unanimous Success in Recent Wave of COVID-19 Business Interruption Decisions in Federal Appeals (Update)”

December 1, 2020December 1, 2020 by Duane Morris

Business Interruption Insurance Lawsuit and the Virus Exclusion Related to COVID-19

By Sheila Raftery Wiggins

The District of New Jersey granted a motion to dismiss a restaurant owner’s purported class action lawsuit seeking business interruption coverage by analyzing: (1) the New Jersey Governor’s Executive Order and (2) the policy language, in a commercial all-risk property damage policy, that excluded coverage for losses covered by viruses.

In N&S Restaurant LLC v. Cumberland Mutual Fire Insurance Company, No. 20-05289 (RBK/KMW), plaintiff filed a claim for loss of business income caused by the New Jersey Governor’s Executive Order which suspended the operation of non-essential retail businesses in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The insurance policy provides coverage for “direct physical loss of or damage to Covered Property at the described premises . . . caused by or result[ing] from any Covered Cause of Loss.” Plaintiff requested coverage under three separate policy provisions: (1) the “Business Income” provision; (2) the “Extra Expense” provision; and (3) the “Civil Authority” provision.

The “Business Income” provision provides as follows:

We will pay for the actual loss of Business Income you sustain due to the necessary suspension of your “operations” during the “period of restoration”. The suspension must be caused by direct physical loss of or damage to property at the described premises. The loss or damage must be caused by or result from a Covered Cause of Loss. With respect to loss of or damage to personal property in the open or personal property in a vehicle, the described premises include the area within 100 feet of such premises.

The “Extra Expense” provision provides as follows:

We will pay necessary Extra Expense you incur during the “period of restoration” that you would not have incurred if there had been no direct physical loss or damage to property at the described premises. The loss or damage must be caused by or result from a Covered Cause of Loss.

The “Civil Authority” provision provides as follows:

When a Covered Cause of Loss causes damage to property other than property at the described premises, we will pay for the actual loss of Business Income you sustain and necessary Extra Expense caused by action of civil authority that prohibits access to the described premises

The policy also denies coverage under several enumerated exclusions. Under the Virus Exclusion, Defendant “will not pay for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by” any “Virus or Bacteria,” which is any “virus, bacterium or other microorganism that induces or is capable of inducing physical distress, illness or disease.” The Virus Exclusion includes an anti-concurrent causation preamble, which states that “[s]uch loss or damage is excluded regardless of any other cause or event that contributes concurrently or in any sequence to the loss[.]”

Defendant denied Plaintiff’s request for coverage, citing two primary reasons: (1) the claim was barred by the Virus Exclusion, and (2) the claim did not arise out of physical loss or damage as required by each of the applicable provisions. Defendant asserted that because COVID-19 caused the Executive Order mandating closure of all non-essential businesses, the Virus Exclusion applies.

Plaintiff asserted that the Virus Exclusion does not apply because the “cause of Plaintiff’s loss was the Closure Orders, not the coronavirus.” Plaintiff supports this point by asserting that its claimed loss is not for decontaminating its premises as a result of a coronavirus infestation.

When analyzing Defendant’s motion to dismiss, the District Court focused on the anti-concurrent causation clause of the Virus Exclusion which specifically states that loss caused directly or indirectly by a virus is excluded. The District Court concluded that there is no doubt that COVID-19, a virus, caused New Jersey’s Governor to issue the Executive Order mandating closure of Plaintiff’s restaurant. Therefore, COVID-19 is still a cause of the closure because the Virus Exclusion specifically provides for such indirect causation. The District Court further stated that there is no requirement, as Plaintiff suggests, for the virus to have physically caused the loss, such as via contamination of the property. The District Court analyzed that although costs for decontamination would certainly be a direct loss caused by the virus, this is not the only possible loss that would trigger the Virus Exclusion. The District Court ruled that by its plain language, the Virus Exclusion applies, barring coverage

This District Court case is one of a growing number of rulings which dismiss similar cases. We expect that this body of law will continue to develop.

April 16, 2020April 16, 2020 by Daniel B. Heidtke

Congress Proposes Bill for Coronavirus Business Interruption Insurance Coverage

As we wrote earlier this week, legislators continue their efforts to address the enormous cost of business continuity losses. Most recently, Representative Mike Thompson of California, introduced H.R.6494, labeled the “Business Interruption Insurance Coverage Act of 2020”. Continue reading “Congress Proposes Bill for Coronavirus Business Interruption Insurance Coverage”

April 14, 2020 by Duane Morris

Lawmakers Continue Efforts to Compel Coronavirus Business Interruption Insurance

By Dominica Anderson, Philip Matthews and Daniel Heidtke

We previously wrote about the growing number of lawsuits by insureds seeking business interruption insurance coverage for business losses in response to the novel coronavirus and ways that state and federal governments were beginning to consider ways that they might compel such coverage.

The potential cost of business continuity losses is enormous. The Congressional Research Service issued a report to Congress on the financial impact to insurers for the cost of covering business interruption claims. The report explains that some industry sources estimate that the cost of covering business interruption claims ranges from $110 billion to $290 billion per month. In a more recent letter, insurance industry leaders explained, “recent estimates show that business continuity losses just for small businesses of 100 or fewer employees could amount to between $220 billion to $383 billion per month. Meanwhile, the total surplus for all of the U.S. home, auto, and business insurers combined to pay all future losses is only $800 billion.” Continue reading “Lawmakers Continue Efforts to Compel Coronavirus Business Interruption Insurance”