Chubb’s argument has always been that the production company was only entitled to recover a maximum of $1 million agreed to under the policy’s civil authority provision due to government-imposed covid shutdown orders.
U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled that Chubb was justified in its denial of coverage, saying the plain terms of the policy do not permit coverage for the production company’s pandemic-related losses.
The production company argues that the lower court ruling cut it off from engaging in discovery from which it could have obtained extrinsic evidence by granting Chubb’s motion for judgment.
The production company’s brief to the Ninth Circuit added that it also should have been granted leave to amend its complaint.
Many district courts across the country have thrown out more than half of the thousands of lawsuits filed by policyholders against their insurance companies seeking to recover pandemic losses. It would appear that these types of cases are generally in favor of insurance companies.
