By Celeste Bott

Law360 (June 25, 2020, 7:31 PM EDT) -- McDonald's has been ordered to give its workers more virus protections, airlines are seeking to escape claims that they owe refunds to passengers for canceled flights, and minor league baseball teams are among the latest to say they were wrongfully denied insurance coverage for coronavirus-related losses. 

While courts across the country are altering procedures, restricting access and postponing certain cases to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the outbreak has also prompted a wave of new litigation across the country.

Here's a breakdown of some of the COVID-19-related cases from the past week.

Consumer Protection 

A former Marine urged a Minnesota federal judge Wednesday to toss a suit brought by 3M alleging he attempted a multibillion-dollar scam involving the purchase of N95 respirators and fake ties to Bill Gates, arguing the court has no jurisdiction over him because of his slim Minnesota connections.

The business dealings Matthew Starsiak and his company AMK Energy Services LLC had with 3M over an attempted N95 deal were "ultimately fruitless," and since he conducted no business transactions with Minnesota-based 3M, the suit should be dismissed, Starsiak said.

A supplier of N95 masks, 3M accused Starsiak and his company this month of approaching it with an offer to buy 900 billion respirators on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to be donated to African populations, even though "virtually nothing" he told 3M turned out to be true.

And two Amazon consumers accusing the online retail giant of illegally increasing prices for high-demand items, such as face masks and disinfectants, amid the coronavirus pandemic must individually arbitrate their claims, Amazon told a California federal judge Monday.

In a motion to compel arbitration, Amazon said plaintiffs Mary McQueen and Victoria Ballinger agreed to the retailer's conditions of use when they registered their accounts in 2015 and 2017, which requires them to submit to individual arbitration for any dispute or claim related to their use of Amazon or any products sold by Amazon.

Insurance

An Anytime Fitness franchisee that operates gyms in Mississippi and Alabama sued Markel Insurance Co. in Illinois federal court Wednesday, claiming the insurer wrongly denied coverage for business interruptions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fountain Enterprises LLC says in its proposed class action complaint that it has suffered and continues to suffer "significant and injurious losses and expenses" after being forced to suspend business operations at its four Anytime Fitness locations to stem the spread of COVID-19 in late March.

Just days after reporting its losses to Markel, the Illinois-based insurer denied coverage, "showing Markel engaged in no meaningful investigation of the claims or review of the policy," Fountain said.

A Michigan chiropractor has hit State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. with a proposed class action alleging it wrongfully applied a "virus exclusion" to deny revenue loss claims from COVID-19-related, state-ordered closures, arguing the exclusion was unrelated to its loss.

Turek Enterprises Inc., doing business as Alcona Chiropractic, told a Michigan federal judge Tuesday that State Farm rejected its coverage claims based on an "utterly wrong" interpretation of the policy's virus exclusion, arguing the exclusion was never written for losses arising from government-ordered pandemic prevention measures. It argued that virus exclusion was written to add to standard property and casualty policies alongside pollution and asbestos contamination exclusions. 

And a slew of minor league baseball teams sued their insurance companies in Pennsylvania federal court Tuesday, saying the insurers have wrongfully refused to pay their claims for financial losses caused by the indefinite postponement of their season because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a complaint filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 15 teams from 11 states sued units of Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., Nationwide and W.R. Berkley Corp., asserting they are owed coverage under their business interruption policies for the mounting losses they have incurred since the pandemic halted their operations.

Employment

McDonald's operations in Illinois and a McDonald's franchise owner should be doing more to protect employees at their restaurants as they continue to work amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, an Illinois state court judge said Wednesday.

Cook County Circuit Judge Eve Reilly partially granted the McDonald's employees' bid for a preliminary injunction against McDonald's Restaurants of Illinois and franchise owner DAK4 LLC, requiring the companies to provide workers at three Chicago locations with more adequate social distancing training and stricter mask enforcement practices.

Evidence from the parties' four-day preliminary injunction proceeding shows that although the fast food giant "has the right idea" for protecting its workers, "it is not being put into practice exactly as McDonald's envisioned, thus endangering public health," Judge Reilly said.

Meanwhile, in California, a state judge instructed an Oakland McDonald's on Tuesday to stay closed until he decides whether to order the franchise's owners to improve their COVID-19 safety protocols after employees claimed they were forced to work while contagious and given face masks made from dog diapers.

And Celebrity Cruises has asked a Florida federal court to toss a proposed class action alleging that it failed to adequately protect thousands of workers on its ships during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the named plaintiffs' claims are "trivial" because they only had cold and flu-like symptoms.

Celebrity, a unit of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., said in a motion to dismiss Tuesday that Alexandra Nedeltcheva and two other crew members who were exposed to the novel coronavirus while working on a ship off the coast of France can't recover money damages for "mere exposure."

Nedeltcheva, who works on the new Celebrity Apex that was set to begin sailing the Mediterranean this summer, said in her April complaint that Celebrity failed to heed warnings about how quickly the coronavirus could spread on cruise ships, and when measures were taken to protect passengers' safety, crew members were ordered to continue operations as normal.

Native American

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe on Tuesday accused a high-ranking Bureau of Indian Affairs staffer and other Trump administration officials of unlawfully threatening to take over its police department as part of ongoing efforts to stop the tribe's coronavirus highway checkpoints.

BIA Assistant Secretary Tara Sweeney threatened to seize a tribal law enforcement contract as retaliation for so-called health safety checkpoints on US Route 212 and South Dakota Highway 63, the Great Plains tribe claimed in a Tuesday complaint filed in D.C. federal court.

In doing so, Sweeney allegedly violated the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act as well as federal trust duties, the tribe said. 

Threats to the police force and the tribe's overall COVID-19 response plan represent "unlawful infringement on tribal self-government and self-determination and put the tribe's members at risk of imminent harm," the tribe said in the complaint.

Real Estate

Jenner & Block LLP's Chicago landlord actually owes the firm $840,000, and the landlord's claim that the firm is more than $3.7 million behind on its rent is false thanks to a rent abatement provision triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenner & Block said Tuesday in response to the landlord's Illinois state court lawsuit.

In an answer to the May contract suit from Hart 353 North Clark LLC, an affiliate of global real estate investment management firm Heitman LLC, the law firm claims that the landlord's complaint failed to attach the actual lease, which "contains clear and explicit, hard-negotiated rent abatement provisions" and proves that Jenner & Block paid Hart 353 everything it is owed.

"Jenner & Block negotiated the abatement provisions in 2005 to cover any unforeseen event, such as a pandemic, that could result in Jenner & Block's inability to use and occupy its space in the normal course of business as reasonably determined by Jenner & Block," the firm said, noting that it hasn't used at least 89% of its space since March 16, dropping from 579 in-office workers to a skeleton crew of, on average, 12.

Transportation

Mexican airline Volaris on Monday asked an Illinois federal court to dismiss a proposed class action over its cancellation of several of its U.S. flights to Mexico amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the claims are "undeniably moot" because the airline has been offering passengers refunds.

In response to a notice from the U.S. Department of Transportation in April warning airlines they could face an enforcement action if they fail to offer refunds to ticket buyers whose flights were canceled or significantly changed in the wake of the pandemic, Volaris instituted a program to offer passengers whose flights had been canceled the option of refunds or electronic travel credits, leaving no basis for the lawsuit, the airline said in its dismissal bid.

Additionally, all of the state law claims asserted by named plaintiff and Chicago resident Samantha Levey — accusing the airline of breach of contract, unjust enrichment and unconscionability and a statutory claim under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act — are preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act, a federal law that preempts state common law and statutory consumer protection claims relating to an air carrier's "prices" and "services," Volaris said.

Southwest Airlines, meanwhile, has asked a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action that claims it broke its contract with travelers when it didn't refund nonrefundable tickets from flights canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying its terms make no promise of a refund.

For flyers with nonrefundable tickets, Southwest's contract allows it to choose whether to give a refund, put the customer on a new flight or give them a credit for a future flight, according to Monday's motion to dismiss. Southwest asked that if the judge doesn't grant the motion, he relocate the case to Texas.

Public Policy

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo overstepped his authority when issuing a 60-day moratorium on evictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the governor's order denies landlords their contractual right to court, a lawyer representing landlords challenging the order told a federal judge on Wednesday.

Mark Guterman of Lehrman Lehrman & Guterman LLP, counsel for the landlords, told U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon during a hearing on Wednesday that the governor had made a legislative move when issuing the order, noting that Cuomo has the authority to issue executive orders but not to legislate.

Guterman argued that the order has prevented landlords from exercising their contractual rights in leases to use the court eviction process and suggested that Cuomo had violated New York state law by issuing the order, although Judge McMahon said she did not have the jurisdiction to address that point.

In Idaho, a ballot measure campaign seeking an income tax increase to fund education has asked a federal court to slash the state's signature requirements by two-thirds due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Reclaim Idaho campaign suggested the signature reduction as an alternative remedy in a reply brief filed Sunday in its dispute against Republican Gov. Brad Little and Secretary of State Lawerence Denney. The campaign has alleged that the officials violated its First Amendment rights by not providing a safe method to gather signatures amid the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, before the April 30 deadline to submit petitions for the Nov. 3 ballot.

And a Maryland federal court can consider a suit alleging that the U.S. citizen children of unauthorized immigrant parents have been improperly denied coronavirus relief payments, the court said in rejecting the government's motion to dismiss.

The U.S. government failed to prove that the claims of injury were insufficient to warrant the suit, which was brought by a group challenging the denial of direct stimulus payments authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, according to the court's order.

Under the legislation signed by President Donald Trump in late March, individuals with qualifying income can receive $1,200 from the federal government, and married couples who file their taxes jointly are entitled to $2,400, plus $500 per child. Only people who filed their 2018 and 2019 taxes using a Social Security number, or who can otherwise provide the numbers to the government, can claim the payments.

The court found that the denial of the $500 payments to undocumented immigrant parents of U.S. children does cause injury to those families by preventing them from purchasing supplies to help during the economic recession caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. This would give them constitutional standing to sue, according to the order.

--Additional reporting by Craig Clough, Y. Peter Kang, Lauraann Wood, Emma Whitford, Daphne Zhang, Hailey Konnath, Dave Simpson, Rachel O'Brien, Andrew McIntyre, Jeff Sistrunk, Paul Williams and Dylan Moroses. Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.

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