The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its first decisions on business-income interruption insurance coverage for Covid-19 related losses, affirming rulings for Aspen Specialty, Cincinnati Insurance, West Bend Mutual and Zurich AmericanInsurance in six different cases.
The three-judge panel joined the 6th, 8th, 9th and 11th Circuits in ruling that restrictions on the use of property, “unaccompanied by any physical alteration,” do not trigger coverage under the defendants’ policies.
Attorneys for Society did not respond to requests for comment on Friday regarding the effect of the 7th Circuit’s precedential decisions on the MDL, which is now in the pretrial discovery phase. The businesses sued their insurers for denying coverage, but federal judges in the northern, central and southern districts of Illinois all ruled for the insurers. Circuit Judges Daniel Manion, Diane Wood and David Hamilton agreed in four precedential opinions issued Thursday.