Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog

Hunton special counsel Scott DeVries was quoted August 14 in a Bloomberg Law article titled “More Virus Insurance Suits Could Follow as Consolidation Fails.” The article discussed a federal panel’s refusal to centralize hundreds of businesses’ lawsuits against their insurers over pandemic-related coverage. Elaborating on the ruling, DeVries observed that “Insurance contracts are a matter of state law interpretation, so I would be surprised if there weren’t different rulings in different jurisdictions. You could see how some policyholders might have held off on filing suits, or may have looked for ways to get out of a federal venue, to avoid being vacuumed into an MDL.” And with regard to the panel’s request for further briefing on the viability of four insurer-specific MDLs, DeVries explains “The language the judges used suggests that they’re certainly taking this idea seriously. Once the briefings on it come in, though, an awful lot of challenges will become apparent.”