Underwriters at Lloyd’s come out on top in Metallica court tussle

Frantic, Inc., or what’s better known as Metallica, will have to recover its losses from the postponement of its 2020 South American concerts by other means and not through insurance, following the band’s court loss against Lloyd’s underwriters.

Metallica’s insurance policy was for cancellations, abandonment, and non-appearances, but it had an exclusion for communicable disease.

According to the court document seen by Insurance Business, Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled: “Based on the foregoing evidence, the Court finds that Moving Defendant has met its burden to show that the proliferation of the COVID-19 caused the cancellations and that it falls under the communicable disease exclusion.

“Plaintiff argues that Moving Defendant’s reading of the policy’s terms is overly broad and argues that there are triable issues of fact as to the efficient proximate cause of the cancellations. The Court is not persuaded by Plaintiff’s arguments.”

The judge, of the Superior Court of the State of California, said the evidence submitted by the underwriters demonstrates that the pandemic spurred the travel restrictions to South America and restrictions on public gatherings; therefore, COVID-19 was the efficient proximate cause of the concerts being cancelled.

It’s unclear how much in losses Metallica was trying to recover in its denied insurance claim.

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