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Law360 (May 10, 2021, 5:33 PM EDT) -- Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has dodged having to pay travel insurance claims to two would-be tourists to Mexico after an Ohio federal judge found that COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and advisories weren't quarantines protected by their policies.
In tossing the proposed class action Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison said the plaintiffs had put forward an overly broad definition of quarantine suggesting that travel restrictions amounted to the kind of forced isolation typical of a medical quarantine.
Imposed isolation, Judge Morrison said, "is the hallmark of quarantine and it is distinctly absent from the COVID-19 civil authority orders and travel advisories."
Alisha DePasquale and Trayton Cox, both residents of Oregon at the time of their planned trip to Mexico last spring, had argued that federal travel advisories and local stay-at-home orders fell under coverage for travelers unable to make a trip because of a quarantine.
"'Quarantine' can be reasonably construed to mean isolation or restriction of movement to prevent the spread of diseases," they said in their October complaint.
The Oregon stay-at-home order DePasquale and Cox referenced in their suit put restrictions on retail businesses, mandated social distancing in certain public places, and suspended in-person gatherings of people beyond immediate households.
Individuals violating the order could be charged with misdemeanors, they said.
But in its bid to dismiss the case, Nationwide argued that quarantines require separation and confinement based on exposure or potential exposure to a contagious disease like COVID-19. Stay-at-home orders do not meet those standards, it argued.
The Nationwide policies did not include any definition of quarantine, court records showed, leaving it to Judge Morrison to render an interpretation. She took a dictionary approach, finding mandated isolation to be the chief characteristic of a quarantine.
Oregon public health statutes and national case law dating back more than a century also showed that quarantines are more stringent than stay-at home-orders, the judge added.
She said that while DePasquale and Cox could have been subject to criminal penalties for violating local restrictions, that did not make the restrictions a quarantine.
Nationwide isn't the first insurer to face a proposed class action for denying coverage for travel plans scuttled by the pandemic. The American unit of Italian trip insurer Assicurazioni Generali Group is fighting 12 lawsuits accusing it of failing to pay for canceled trips. The cases were centralized into multidistrict litigation in New York in December.
Counsel for the parties in the Ohio case did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. is represented by Aneca E. Lasley, Alexandra M. Petrillo and Petrina A. McDaniel of Squire Patton Boggs LLP and Michael H. Carpenter of Carpenter Lipps & Leland LLP.
DePasquale and Cox are represented by Jeffrey S. Goldenberg of Goldenberg Schneider LPA, James C. Shah and Michael Ols of Miller Shah LLP and John F. Edgar and Ryan J. Loehr of Edgar Law Firm LLC.
The case is Alisha DePasquale et al. v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., case number 2:20-cv-05370, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
--Additional reporting by Craig Clough. Editing by Jill Coffey.
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