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Keywords

bankruptcy; mass torts; multidistrict litigation; COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated many suits—including thousands of class actions—in which plaintiffs claim that defendants caused economic or health-related harm. Although the COVID-19 context may have led many plaintiffs’ lawyers to believe that the cases would be received with great sympathy, courts thus far have been very cautious, focusing closely—as they do in non-COVID cases—on whether the defendant has breached clear contractual commitments or has engaged in tortious or other wrongdoing. If anything, courts have been more skeptical and cautious in the COVID-19 context, recognizing that everyone has suffered due to the pandemic and that, in many instances, defendants themselves have attempted in good faith to navigate the challenges raised by the pandemic.

This Essay focuses primarily on three categories of cases that have already generated numerous rulings: (1) business interruption insurance claims, (2) tuition reimbursement actions, and (3) suits against prisons and immigration detention facilities. These three categories of cases line up on a continuum based on whether the proximate cause of the harm is COVID-19 itself or the conduct of the defendants. At one end are the business interruption insurance cases, which have received hostile treatment from almost all courts that have considered those claims. The underlying insurance policies almost universally require “physical loss or damage” to property, a requirement that is hard to square with losses caused by a pandemic. In the middle are the tuition refund cases, which have seen mixed success, with many (but not all) courts granting motions to dismiss after failing to find that there was a contractual commitment to in-person teaching. At the other end is the category of cases raising health and safety issues related to COVID-19 in prisons and at immigration detention facilities. On the merits, this is the strongest of the three categories, given the clear legal duty of government officials to protect the health of those in their custody. Yet, even in this context, many courts have declined to authorize injunctive relief, finding that the officials involved have attempted in good faith to protect their populations from COVID-19. At bottom, courts have commendably stayed focused on the merits and have not been swayed by the enormity of COVID-19 or the large numbers of claims. After discussing the three categories above, this Essay also briefly examines (1) consumer, labor, and securities fraud cases in the context of COVID-19; (2) COVID-19 cases involving arbitration clauses and class action waivers; and (3) the handful of class-wide settlements that have thus far been reached in COVID-related litigation.

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