Ga. University Hospitals Lose Bid for Reconsideration in COVID-19 Coverage Action

AUGUSTA, Ga. — A Georgia federal judge has refused to reconsider his ruling that a group of Augusta University hospitals cannot recoup business interruption losses from Affiliated FM Insurance Co. because the alleged presence of COVID-19 at their facilities did not cause “physical loss or damage.”

On July 7, Chief Judge J. Randal Hall of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the lack of a “physical loss or damage” element for the policy’s Communicable Disease coverages means that the “actual presence of communicable disease” is, by definition, “physical loss or damage” …