Amid the tumult surrounding the coronavirus, lawyers say legal issues related to force majeure contract clauses are reaching a frenzied pitch, and the courts may be asked to resolve novel issues.

"'Force majeure.' I've heard that phrase more in the last three days than in my 30 years of law practice," said attorney Louis Chodoff, who is based in Ballard Spahr's Cherry Hill, New Jersey, office. Since Chodoff is an employment lawyer, one can only imagine what the contract lawyers are hearing.

"We are swamped," Cristina Shea told Corporate Counsel. "Everything is on fire right now." Shea, a partner in Reed Smith's San Francisco office, focuses on representing corporations in disputes with their insurance companies.

Shea said the force majeure issue is "coming up in every industry, every supply chain—from medical and pharmaceutical to computers to planned special events." The phrase means an uncontrollable event that keeps one party from fulfilling a contractual agreement while being legally excused for it.

Shea's office works both on assisting clients who want to enforce contracts and on helping other clients who can't fulfill their obligations. She has been working long hours while sheltering in place in San Francisco, while others in her national law firm are also working from home unless there is a compelling reason not to.

"I would definitely say it's not normal business hours," she said. "It's crisis mode, and clients around the globe in all different time zones need immediate response and attention."

Shea said what is different about the coronavirus crisis from other force majeure events is the sheer scope of it and its ripple effect on supply chains, not only by closed businesses and sick employees, but also by the impact of government travel bans.

"What's different is the continual impact of this," she explained. "Hurricanes and earthquakes seem more limited in geography and time. But this one has a global impact that is spreading across borders and across all industries. And it just keeps going."

Meryl Macklin and Mark Duedall, partners at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, said companies and their lawyers are in "uncharted waters" on whether force majeure covers this pandemic. On Friday they held the first of the law firm's several 19-minute webinars dealing with coronavirus legal questions.

Duedall said the first step in assisting clients "is helping them understand the process." He said one must find the relevant contract provisions, extract them and filter them through the law.

Macklin said they have compiled a 50-state survey of differences in force majeure law that shows most states followed a predictable pattern in past cases. A couple states have no laws, she said, and one, New York, is very restrictive in only applying force majeure if the event is listed in the contract clause.

She said companies also can use the doctrine of impracticability or impossibility if there is no force majeure clause in the contract, except in Kentucky, which does not allow the doctrine.

"Right now it's an open question of whether an 'act of God' includes a pandemic," Macklin said. We found nothing [in the cases] that looks like the situation we are in now."

The questions could all just end in massive litigation, "but at the moment I am thinking that likely will not happen," she said.

Not everyone agrees. One is Scott Seaman, a partner in Hinshaw & Culbertson's Chicago office and co-chair of the firm's global insurance services practice group.

Seaman, who primarily represents insurance companies, said he is seeing general counsel being more aggressive about pursuing coverage for their companies' lost business and lost profits.

"I think we are seeing policyholder lawyers staking out positions in their articles and advertisements," he explained, "and we'll see a lot of litigation over business interruption coverage."

Seaman said some legislators have even discussed bills to require insurers to pay for business losses due to the coronavirus. "That could have disastrous consequences for the industry," he said.

The impact of the coronavirus could make the courts swing more liberal when interpreting force majeure provisions, Seaman said. "And, in my opinion, the courts should not allow events to distort contract law right now."

Seaman called the dynamics "very interesting. In terms of how it will play out in the courts, we'll see. But the parties are lining up."