Insurers won a pair of big business interruption lawsuits last week, continuing a mostly successful defense against paying pandemic business claims.
In California, U.S. District Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled in favor of the insurance industry on pandemic-related business interruption claims filed by attorneys representing two Napa Valley-based French restaurants on the basis that the virus exclusion precludes coverage for losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the court acknowledges the havoc that the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent shelter-in-place orders have caused businesses throughout this country and the world, the court cannot read an ambiguity into an insurance contract where none exists, Judge Corley said.