The drumbeat of early defense wins for insurers in COVID-19 business interruption cases has been—with a few notable exceptions—pretty darn steady. So much so, that I think you can count the number of those cases that have actually made it to trial on one hand.

So naturally, it caught my eye last week when lawyers at DLA Piper won a defense verdict in a business interruption trial in California state court—seemingly the state’s first. After two weeks of trial and just 90 minutes of deliberations, jurors in Santa Monica found that the plaintiffs’ lawyers at Barnes & Thornburg hadn’t proven that the virus caused “direct physical loss or damage to property” at a Venice Beach hotel. That’s a prerequisite to trigger the business income and communicable disease coverage in the property insurance policy issued by DLA’s client, Allianz affiliate Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co.  

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]