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Mealey's Coronavirus

  • February 20, 2026

    Judge: Government Cannot Be Forced To Enforce COVID Test Reimbursement Statutes

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a lawsuit brought by a COVID-19 diagnostic test provider seeking to force the federal government to enforce provisions of COVID-era legislation providing for reimbursement for COVID-19 testing by health insurers, a California federal judge granted the government’s motion to dismiss after finding that whether and how to enforce the statutes was within the discretion of the government.

  • February 20, 2026

    Taxpayer Seeking COVID Tax Credits Trims Counts From Suit After Dismissal Motion

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A taxpayer seeking to compel the Internal Revenue Service to process its claim of employee retention credits (ERC) it says it is owed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and apply the credits to its tax liability amended its complaint in response to the government’s motion to dismiss nearly all the counts of the taxpayer’s first amended complaint, including violations of due process and equal protection by the IRS in its efforts to collect payroll taxes without offsetting the anticipated credits.

  • February 19, 2026

    StubHub Largely Granted Summary Judgment In Consumers’ Pandemic Cancellation Case

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted StubHub Inc.’s summary judgment motion as to the three remaining California law claims brought by a putative class of consumers seeking injunctive relief or restitution related to the company’s refund policy changes implemented for events canceled or rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic; the judge deferred ruling on claims in the multidistrict litigation seeking monetary damages to allow the parties to file briefs about why the claims should or shouldn’t be compelled to arbitration.

  • February 18, 2026

    Suit To Block CDC Vaccine Actions Has Recommendation Reductions Added To Complaint

    BOSTON — Pursuant to leave granted by a Massachusetts federal judge, physicians’ professional groups and others seeking to challenge changes made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its vaccine recommendations and other agency actions on Feb. 17 filed a fourth amended complaint, adding to the agency actions challenged in previous complaints the recent reduction of the CDC’s recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11 in alignment with the recommended vaccine schedule of Denmark.

  • February 18, 2026

    Plaintiffs Fail To Show HHS Used Single Cause Policy In COVID Countermeasures Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge dismissed without prejudice a lawsuit brought by more than 200 individuals whose family members were treated during the COVID-19 pandemic with and allegedly died as a direct result of certain countermeasures such as hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, ruling that the family members had not plausibly alleged that the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was applying an incorrect standard for eligibility for Countermeasure Injury Compensation Program (CICP) benefits.

  • February 18, 2026

    Suit That Former Physician’s Assistant Filed Over LTD Benefits Is Dropped

    LYNCHBURG, Va. — Pursuant to a joint stipulation, dismissal with prejudice has been entered in a suit that a former emergency room physician’s assistant filed against the claims administrator that terminated his long-term disability (LTD) benefits; the plaintiff said he “underwent a PET/CT scan that indicated Alzheimer’s dementia” and argued in part that discovery from other lawsuits has shown that the insurer’s reviewer “denies 85-90% of all disability claims she reviews.”

  • February 17, 2026

    Split 3rd Circuit Revives Hospital System Workers’ Title VII COVID Shot Claims

    PHILADELPHIA — A split Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a lower court’s dismissal of Title VII claims brought by more than 100 employees of a Pennsylvania hospital network against their employer alleging failure to provide a reasonable accommodation for exemption from a systemwide COVID-19 vaccine policy on religious grounds, finding that the employees “plausibly alleged the circumstantial unreasonableness of” an accommodation that required them to undergo testing using swabs sterilized with a carcinogen.

  • February 17, 2026

    ‘Regarded As’ ADA Claim Based On COVID Vaccination Status Stayed Pending Mediation

    PITTSBURGH — In a former employee’s lawsuit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claiming that her employer failed to accommodate what it perceived as the medical disability of being immunocompromised after she refused to become vaccinated for COVID-19, a Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge ordered the case stayed pending the completion of mediation.

  • February 12, 2026

    Wash. High Court To Review $936K Fine Of Restaurant That Operated During Pandemic

    OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington Supreme Court granted the petition of a restaurant business seeking review of a state appellate court affirmance of a trial court ruling that affirmed the imposition of fines totaling $936,000 by the state Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) for violations of COVID-era emergency proclamations prohibiting restaurants from offering dine-in services, which the business said were unconstitutionally excessive.

  • February 11, 2026

    Federal Judge Finds SBA’s PPP ‘3-Year Rule’ For Eligibility Arbitrary And Capricious

    TACOMA, Wash. — Finding a Small Business Administration (SBA) rule making ineligible loan applicants who had been suspended from transactions with the federal government within the past three years not rationally adopted with regard to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a Washington federal judge reversed the SBA’s denial of PPP loan forgiveness for a business whose owner had been suspended from doing business with the federal government.

  • February 11, 2026

    Judge Tosses FCA Suit Alleging Billing Fraud Against Life Sciences Company

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed with leave to amend a suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act and similar New York state law against a life sciences company for purportedly fraudulently billing government insurers for COVID-19 testing, finding that the relator “failed to allege anything, much less misconduct.”

  • February 11, 2026

    1st Circuit Revives Religious Bias Claims In COVID Jab Firing, Cites Similar Cases

    BOSTON — Following decisions in two similar cases, a First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated and remanded a trial court’s dismissal of state and federal discrimination and retaliation claims brought by two former managers of a large national toy manufacturer against their employer after they said they were forced to resign as a result of refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19 for religious reasons.

  • February 10, 2026

    Disability Determination, Other Issues Briefed Before 6th Circuit In Benefits Case

    CINCINNATI — Arguing in part that the claimant’s “proven ability to work coupled with the improvement documented by her own treating providers” was sufficient to show that she was not totally disabled under the terms of the long-term disability (LTD) plan, appellants urged the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm denial of benefits for a project director who stopped working because of symptoms she attributed to long COVID.

  • February 06, 2026

    Independent Contractor Payments Not Part Of Payroll Costs For PPP Loan Forgiveness

    PHILADELPHIA — Concluding that for the purposes of Paycheck Protection Act (PPP) loan forgiveness, payments by a business to independent contractors should not be included in the calculation of the business’s payroll costs, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed a ruling by a Pennsylvania federal court that the Small Business Administration (SBA) acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying forgiveness for a portion of a business’s PPP loan.

  • February 03, 2026

    Florida Woman Seeks To Compel HHS Secretary To Add COVID Vaccine To Injury Table

    FORT MYERS, Fla. — A woman injured by the COVID-19 vaccine sued U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Feb. 2 seeking to compel him to add the vaccine to the Vaccine Injury Table (VIT) as provided by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act so that she could be compensated under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

  • February 03, 2026

    PPP Loan Recipient Says False Claims Act Suit Fails To Show Knowing Falsity

    SAN DIEGO — Asserting that a False Claims Act (FCA) claimant had no direct knowledge of the details of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application process and thus could not show a knowingly false statement made in connection with the application, a construction equipment dealer moved a California federal court for summary judgment in a lawsuit by a former employee alleging that the dealer received the COVID-related loan by altering or misrepresenting its payroll records.

  • January 29, 2026

    Government To High Court: Service Members’ Vaccine Mandate Petitions Are Moot

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 28 — two weeks after the federal government argued in two oppositions that the issue in companion cases is moot — distributed for its Feb. 20 conference two petitions by members of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force that ask the high court to consider in class cases whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) allows for their reinstatement following their refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine to include back pay and retirement points.

  • January 29, 2026

    6th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Retailer’s Coverage Suit Prompted By COVID-19

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s grant of an insurer’s motion to dismiss a women’s fashion retailer’s breach of contract and declaratory judgment lawsuit seeking business interruption coverage for its losses arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, holding that the lower court did not err when it refused to evaluate the policy at issue under the law of each of the 22 states where the insured claimed losses.

  • January 28, 2026

    Doctors Groups Seek To Block Changes To CDC Vaccine Recommendations

    BOSTON — On the heels of a request to amend their complaint a fourth time in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Jan. 5 reduction of its recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11, physicians’ professional groups and others moved for a preliminary injunction to block the CDC from implementing or enforcing those changes, as well as its earlier announced changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women, the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns and other changes to established vaccine recommendations.

  • January 26, 2026

    COVID Grant Terminations Case Stayed Pending Court Of Appeals Jurisdiction Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pending the resolution of Climate United Fund v. Citibank, which the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently agreed to rehear en banc, a District of Columbia federal judge stayed a lawsuit brought by a group of municipalities and a labor union against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its acting director alleging that the mass termination of federal grants provided as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic is unlawful.

  • January 26, 2026

    3rd Circuit Affirms Qualified Immunity Grant In COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Case

    PHILADELPHIA — Ruling that survivors of former nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 failed to show that New Jersey’s governor and public health commissioner were on notice that their actions in handling the pandemic with respect to nursing homes would violate the residents’ statutory or constitutional rights, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 23 affirmed a New Jersey federal court’s dismissal of the survivors’ lawsuit on the basis of qualified immunity.

  • January 23, 2026

    11th Circuit Affirms Insurer Win In LTD ‘Active Employment’ Case

    ATLANTA — Concluding in an unpublished per curiam opinion that an insurer “had a reasonable basis” for finding that a surgeon dropped below the number of working hours required for “active employment” early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the insurer that denied long-term disability (LTD) benefits on the basis that a tremor he consulted a doctor about over that time constituted an excluded preexisting condition.

  • January 23, 2026

    Hospital Seeking $11.5M Refund For COVID Tax Credit Not Eligible, Government Says

    SPOKANE, Wash. — Stating that a hospital failed to allege facts establishing that it had experienced a partial suspension of its operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government moved a Washington federal court to dismiss the hospital’s complaint seeking payment of a tax refund of more than $11.5 million representing employee retention tax credits (ERCs) provided for by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

  • January 23, 2026

    Government: Business Not Suspended During COVID-19, Not Entitled To Tax Credits

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Denying that its motion for judgment on the pleadings in an employer’s lawsuit seeking employee retention credits (ERCs) authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was based solely on IRS interpretational guidance, the federal government has filed a reply brief stating that its motion is grounded in basic statutory interpretation, under which the employer could not have been classified as having been suspended or shut down so as to make it eligible for ERCs.

  • January 22, 2026

    Manhattan College Settles Undergrads’ Pandemic Closure Suit For More Than $740,000

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval of a $742,940 settlement to be paid by Manhattan College to end class action litigation by students who alleged that they were not properly reimbursed for tuition, fees and other costs after the campus closed and all classes switched to remote learning in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.