By Celeste Bott

Law360 (June 4, 2020, 6:53 PM EDT) -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals says one of its suppliers is "holding hostage" the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, Amazon workers have accused the company of failing to follow laws and health guidelines at a New York fulfillment center, and a lawsuit comparing Massachusetts' governor to King George III challenges his decision to close businesses during the pandemic.

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.

Cybersecurity & Privacy

A professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara has launched a proposed class action against Zoom Video Communications Inc., accusing the burgeoning company of allowing a 400-person video conference to be "Zoombombed" with child porn.

Victor Rios, an associate dean in UCSB's social sciences department, sued Zoom on Tuesday, blaming the company for two successive Zoombomb attacks on a webinar he was hosting on April 30.

In addition to accusing Zoom of overly lax security, the professor said the company had shared user data without permission.

Rios brought his lawsuit on behalf of himself and anyone else in the U.S. who used Zoom "during the applicable limitations period," estimating the proposed class could include "millions of people."

Native American

The Treasury Department and federally recognized tribes have asked a D.C. federal judge for quick wins in the tribes' suits against the government seeking to block Alaska Native corporations from receiving millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief, battling over whether the companies qualify for the funds under the CARES Act.

The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, the Navajo Nation, three Alaska tribes and others say that U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta "hewed to the plain language of the statute and accepted principles of statutory construction" when he issued an April injunction preventing Alaska Native corporations, known as ANCs, from receiving any of the $8 billion in direct tribal funding included in the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

While the law includes ANCs in its definition of "Indian tribe" borrowed from the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, a federal law governing tribal contracting, that definition also includes an "eligibility clause" that limits the definition by targeting only tribes "recognized as eligible for the special programs and services provided by the United States to Indians because of their status as Indians," according to the tribes' motion for summary judgment.

ANCs "indisputably do not satisfy the terms of the eligibility clause," because it restricts eligible tribes to those that are formally recognized by the federal government under the List Act, the tribes said.

But U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose department is in charge of distributing the money, said in his own motion for summary judgment that the federal government has long interpreted the eligibility clause as not applying to ANCs, a "reasonable and persuasive" approach "as it hews most closely to 'the cardinal principle' of statutory interpretation: that every term in the statute should be given some effect."

Public Policy

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker overstepped his authority when he shut down businesses across the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a suit filed Monday that compares him to King George III.

Baker made his own laws when he declared a state of emergency in March, according to the 47-page complaint filed in Worcester County Superior Court.

Using the Civil Defense Act, which the suit calls "a Cold War-era statute" aimed at foreign invasions or natural disasters, Baker bypassed the Legislature and compounded the problem by ignoring the Public Health Act, which is more properly tailored to a pandemic, the complaint says.

Commercial Contracts

Town Sports International, which operates Boston Sports Clubs and other gym chains, has moved to dismiss a proposed class action over its continued collection of membership fees during the COVID-19 epidemic, and said several frivolous filings in the case warranted sanctions.

The company said in two filings Monday that the claims against it were baseless, and that the attorneys representing the gym members had made inappropriate comments to the media and repeatedly failed to follow the rules for filings, including in an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction that has since been dropped, driving up TSI's legal bills.

The gym members filed suit against TSI on April 5, just days after the company charged its members on April 1 for the month's membership fees. The members called the move "a deplorable display of corporate avarice," saying the company should never have charged for services that it knew it would not be able to provide due to the state's decision to close nonessential businesses in response to COVID-19.

And Inovio Pharmaceuticals filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court Thursday accusing one of its suppliers of "holding hostage" the development of Inovio's COVID-19 vaccine, and asking the court to make the supplier turn over its manufacturing technology so other companies can use it.

The lawsuit, filed in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, claimed that Texas-based VGXI Inc. and its South Korean parent company, GeneOne Life Science Inc., signed a contract to make Inovio's vaccine products that requires them to share their manufacturing methods with Inovio or other suppliers if VGXI can't make the products itself.

Employment

An Illinois state court judge refused Wednesday to toss a proposed class of Chicago McDonald's employees' accusations that the company and certain franchisees haven't done enough to protect them amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Via livestream, Cook County Circuit Judge Eve Reilly rejected McDonald's Corp.'s argument that governmental agencies, including the state and local departments of health, had primary jurisdiction to hear claims that the fast-food giant's allegedly subpar response to the coronavirus has endangered its workers and constitutes a public nuisance.

And a lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York federal court alleges Amazon has failed to follow laws and health guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic at its fulfillment center on Staten Island, leading to the death and injury of warehouse workers and their families.

Amazon is more worried about maintaining productivity than making sure its workers aren't coming to work sick and allowing them to practice proper hygiene and social distancing on the job, according to the complaint filed by a group of warehouse workers and their relatives.

Workers at the New York City warehouse walked off the job in March, demanding that the e-commerce giant shut down and sanitize the facility after workers there tested positive for the virus. They say Amazon's failures to keep the JFK8 warehouse safe during the COVID-19 pandemic has already led to the death of at least one worker and caused other workers to bring the virus home to their families.

Insurance

Generali Global Assistance Inc. is being sued by a proposed class of would-be travelers who allege the company wrongfully denied insurance claims for trips canceled as a result of government stay-at-home orders issued to stem the spread of COVID-19.

In a complaint filed in California federal court Tuesday, named plaintiff Richard Robbins said he had planned to take a trip from his home in California to Deer Valley, Utah, in April, and bought insurance for the trip in early February. After stay-at-home orders were issued in California in March, Robbins was forced to cancel the trip, and put in a claim for $7,681, the maximum coverage under his policy. According to the complaint, the policy specifically covers losses resulting from quarantine to prevent the spread of disease.

Generali denied coverage, however, saying in a letter to Robbins that the COVID-19 outbreak is considered a foreseeable event for any plans purchased on or after Jan. 29, and the policy excludes coverage for losses of foreseeable events.

Securities

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against a purported internet investment adviser on Wednesday for failing to turn over its books while touting investment opportunities related to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

The agency claims the Miami-based E*Hedge Securities Inc. and its CEO Devon W. Parks have failed since April 14 to hand over copies of the firm's books or records in the course of an SEC examination and that the firm is not properly registered with the regulator to be an internet investment adviser.

The company recently "attempted to capitalize on potential investor interest in products and treatments for the recent coronavirus" by registering a website called Covid19Invest.com, the SEC said, but Park has attempted to use the coronavirus as an excuse for not complying with the SEC's examination requests and ducked inquiries from the agency's staff.

And on Wednesday, a proposed class action was filed in Florida federal court by investors in cruise line giant Carnival, accusing it of misleading them and consumers regarding the company's safe operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the stock price falling after a number of major outbreaks onboard Carnival ships were reported.

--Additional reporting by Andrew Westney, Chris Villani, Emma Cueto, Danielle Nichole Smith, Mike Curley, Lauraann Wood, Mike LaSusa, Dean Seal, Lauren Berg and Matthew Santoni. Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.

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