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Mealey's Coronavirus

  • September 10, 2025

    Employee Awarded $425,000 For Vaccine Refusal Firing Seeks Front, Back Pay

    CHICAGO — After an Illinois federal jury awarded him $425,000 for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stemming from his termination for refusing to become vaccinated against COVID-19 after being denied a religious exemption, a former transit authority employee filed a post-trial brief in support of his request that he be awarded front and back pay.

  • September 10, 2025

    Judge: Integration Brought Owners-Only LTD Policy Under ERISA

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Dismissing bad faith and breach of contract claims that a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) equity owner who unsuccessfully sought long-term disability (LTD) benefits because of symptoms he attributed to long COVID asserted under California law, a California federal judge concluded that when “an employer integrates a pre-existing” policy that is not governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “into a broader ERISA-governed plan, the non-ERISA policy becomes a part of the ERISA plan and is subject to the requirements and preemptive effect of ERISA.”

  • September 10, 2025

    Insurer Faulted For Terminating LTD Benefits In Case Involving Fatigue, COVID

    TRENTON, N.J. — Citing “procedural irregularities and substantive errors” in an insurer’s handling of a long-term disability (LTD) claim for an individual whose diagnoses include myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and long COVID, a New Jersey federal judge issued an unpublished opinion directing that the claimant receive about seven months of retroactive benefits and that her claim be remanded for a determination as to whether she remained eligible after her administrative appeal was denied.

  • September 09, 2025

    Challenge To Tobacco, Vaccination Surcharges Partly Survives Dismissal

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Continuing a string of at least partial victories for plaintiffs in putative class cases over health plan tobacco surcharges, a North Carolina federal judge ruled that two of three claims against GardaWorld Cash Service Inc. survive dismissal; one of the surviving claims concerns the tobacco surcharge, and the other concerns a surcharge levied against those who didn’t show that they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by a certain date.

  • September 08, 2025

    CFPB Says Tolling Agreement Renders Claims Against Credit Reporting Agency Timely

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed its second amended complaint in a California federal court, explaining that a tolling agreement’s naming of a credit reporting agency’s parent company rather than the agency was inadvertent and a mutual mistake and contending that the effect of the agreement was that its claims against the agency for its conduct in dealing with consumer disputes of credit report information were not barred by the statute of limitations.

  • September 05, 2025

    Contractor’s Bid For COVID- Era Employment Credits Amended To Reflect Payments

    BALTIMORE — After a federal contractor received some $2.76 million of the tax refund of $3,568,706.52 in employee retention credits (ERC) it had originally sued for under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act as a business suffering a significant decline in gross receipts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the contractor amended its complaint to reflect the payments, seek interest at the noncorporate rate and protect its interests with respect to the third party that prepared its taxes.

  • September 04, 2025

    Judge: No Coverage Owed For Disparagement Suit Brought By Maker Of COVID-19 Test

    ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania granted a commercial umbrella insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in an insured’s lawsuit seeking personal and advertising injury coverage for an underlying disparagement lawsuit alleging that it sent 19,000 letters to Chester County residents asserting that the COVID-19 test kits they used were unreliable, finding that the underlying complaint does not state a claim for negligent trade libel and the insurer has met its burden in establishing that the professional services and knowing publication exclusions bar coverage.

  • September 04, 2025

    Government Says No Standing Exists To Sue To Restore COVID Vaccine Recommendations

    BOSTON — Stating that the plaintiffs’ alleged harms were too speculative to confer standing, the federal government on Sept. 3 moved to dismiss a lawsuit by several physicians’ professional groups and 3 Jane Does against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and several other federal officials and agencies seeking to set aside the HHS’s removal of the COVID-19 vaccination from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended immunization schedules for healthy children and pregnant women.

  • September 04, 2025

    Judge: Immunocompromised Doctor Deserves LTD Benefits Due To COVID-19 Risk

    WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Following a bench trial on the administrative record regarding a clinical anesthesiologist with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) whose unsuccessful disability claim was based on his risk of exposure to COVID-19, a North Carolina federal judge concluded on de novo review that the anesthesiologist is entitled to retroactive long-term disability (LTD) benefits, prejudgment interest and the costs of the suit.

  • September 03, 2025

    Ruling Challenge Was A New Claim, 7th Circuit Affirms Denial Of LTD Benefits

    CHICAGO — Affirming summary judgment against a professional musician whose long-term disability (LTD) claim was denied under policy terms because she was not an active, full-time employee when she said long COVID symptoms made her unable to work, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 2 said the information submitted in her administrative appeal “in effect requested coverage for a different loss, and that meant she was submitting a new claim.”

  • September 03, 2025

    Hydroxychloroquine Seller Again Amends Complaint After Prior Pleading Is Stricken

    TRENTON, N.J. — After its second amended complaint (SAC) against a pharmaceutical manufacturer — filed in connection with its purchase of large quantities of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine phosphate during the COVID-19 pandemic — was stricken for failure to comply with local rules, a pharmaceutical supplier refiled its SAC alleging that the manufacturer breached a sales contract by not refunding the supplier for unsold products or providing price protection.

  • August 28, 2025

    Municipalities, Labor Union Seek Summary Judgment On COVID Grant Terminations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of municipalities and a labor union on Aug. 27 moved a District of Columbia federal court for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its acting director alleging that the mass termination of federal grants that were a response to the COVID-19 pandemic is unlawful.

  • August 28, 2025

    Jury’s Award Partially Upheld In Pandemic Speech Case; New Trial For 1 Claim

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut partially denied a renewed motion for judgment notwithstanding a jury verdict or for a new trial filed by a Connecticut school board and principal after a jury awarded a Connecticut teacher $1.1 million on her claims that she was subjected to retaliation and defamation after making public comments and social media comments regarding the COVID-19 pandemic; the judge left in place $475,000 awarded for a retaliation claim brought under state law and a defamation claim and ordered a new trial on the teacher’s retaliation claim brought under federal law.

  • August 26, 2025

    North Carolina High Court Allows Bars To Sue For Lost Income Caused By Lockdowns

    RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina bar owners who say that lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic violated their right to earn a living can sue the state and seek monetary damages, a divided North Carolina Supreme Court held, affirming a judgment of a state appeals court that found that a trial court order properly denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

  • August 25, 2025

    Split High Court Stays District Court Vacatur Of Health Research Grant Terminations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court granted the federal government’s application for a stay of a Massachusetts federal district court order that voided the termination by the National Institutes of Health of several public health grants, including funding for COVID-related research, but left in place for now that part of the lower court order invalidating several policies that spurred the terminations.

  • August 22, 2025

    Vaccine Refuser Who Court Found Failed To Make Out Discrimination Claim Appeals

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment to an employer in a former employee’s lawsuit stemming from her termination for declining to become vaccinated for COVID-19, having found that the employee failed to establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate her religious beliefs or of racial discrimination, the employee on Aug. 21 filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • August 22, 2025

    Hospital Says Vaccine Mandate Not State Act, Did Not Violate Constitutional Rights

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Arguing that it is not a state actor and that former employees’ constitutional rights were not violated, a university health system moved to dismiss the second amended complaint of former employees alleging violations of their constitutional rights to “bodily autonomy, medical privacy and equal protection” caused by the health system’s mandatory COVID-19 policy and seeking damages under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code.

  • August 21, 2025

    No Contract Existed Between University And Student Who Died In COVID-19 Isolation

    NEWARK, N.J. — Finding that the parents of a college sophomore who died from an epileptic seizure while in a university COVID-19 isolation dormitory failed to allege the existence of a valid contract between the student and the university, a New Jersey federal judge on Aug. 20 granted the university’s motion and dismissed with prejudice the parents’ lawsuit seeking damages for breach of contract.

  • August 21, 2025

    Further Stay Denied In Lawsuit Seeking Final Determination On PPP Loan Forgiveness

    FORT WORTH, Texas — In a lawsuit by a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan recipient alleging wrongdoing on the part of the lender in arranging the loan and partly denying loan forgiveness and seeking a final determination on forgiveness from the Small Business Administration (SBA), a Texas federal court denied the loan recipient’s motion for a further stay to appeal the SBA’s final forgiveness determination to the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals and ordered the loan recipient to file an amended complaint by Sept. 15.

  • August 20, 2025

    5th Circuit Reverses ‘Quorum Clause’ Ruling That Enjoined Pregnant Workers Act

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority found that a constitutional “quorum clause” does not require U.S. Congress members to be physically present to make up a voting quorum, reversing and vacating a Texas federal judge’s ruling that the clause required physical presence and trumped a COVID-19-era rule that allowed voting by proxy during the passage of federal legislation that established the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA).

  • August 20, 2025

    5th Circuit Remands Louisiana Dock Operator’s Claims Over COVID-19 Vaccine Firing

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a Louisiana dock operator who was fired for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine after denial of a religious exemption request presented “sufficient evidence” to pursue claims of religious discrimination and disparate treatment, reversing and remanding the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to his former employer.

  • August 19, 2025

    Parties Seek Summary Judgment In Resort Employee’s COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Case

    CAMDEN, N.J. — In a lawsuit alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) stemming from the refusal of a resort employee with a history of negative reactions to vaccines and other medications to become vaccinated for COVID-19 under the resort’s mandatory vaccination policy and denial of a medical exemption, the resort moved for summary judgment and the employee moved for partial summary judgment.

  • August 14, 2025

    Law Student Blaming COVID Data Fraud For Disenrollment Loses Appeal In 1st Circuit

    BOSTON — Finding that a former law student who alleged that his disenrollment from law school resulted from his refusal to be vaccinated pursuant to a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy that was implemented based on allegedly fraudulent COVID-19 data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by officials of Massachusetts and other states had “failed to identify any infirmity in the district court’s standing reasoning,” a panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a per curiam judgment affirmed a Massachusetts federal court ruling dismissing the case for lack of standing.

  • August 14, 2025

    9th Circuit En Banc Majority Affirms Order Backing School District Vaccine Policy

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals en banc majority ruled that a Los Angeles school district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy was subject to review and survives under scrutiny because the district “could have reasonably concluded that COVID-19 vaccines would protect the health and safety of its employees and students” in affirming the trial court’s order granting the district’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.

  • August 12, 2025

    Shutdown Orders Caused Insured’s Losses, Not Pandemic, Minnesota Panel Says, Reverses

    ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota appeals panel on Aug. 11 reversed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a commercial property insurer in an insured’s coverage dispute arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, ruling that the governmental orders that shut down 150 of the insured’s health and fitness clubs in response to the pandemic are the causes of the insured’s losses for purposes of determining the number of occurrences subject to the policy’s “Interruption By Communicable Disease” coverage limit.