Pandemic shutdowns legal battle heads to appeals court

Insurance coverage for losses suffered during pandemic-related shutdowns will be the focus of an upcoming hearing at the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

The court is set to hear an appeal by the Scranton Club regarding a lawsuit it had filed against Tuscarora Wayne Mutual Group in June 2020, where it alleged that the company wrongly denied its claim under the business interruption portion of its policy.

Attorneys representing the social club are hoping to overturn a ruling that upheld Tuscarora’s motion to dismiss.

“It’s a typical tactic of insurance companies to look for any way to get around paying on a policy where they collected premiums for decades,” Dan Munley, whose law firm represents the Scranton Club, told the Times Tribune. “I’m much more concerned about the mom-and-pop businesses that lost everything as a result of the pandemic than I am for billionaire insurance companies.”

The Scranton Club’s lawsuit is one of many filed nationwide challenging insurance companies’ denial of coverage for shutdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 2,000 such cases have been filed in state and federal courts as of January, according to the litigation tracker maintained by the University of Pennsylvania Law School.