Federal Judge Refuses to Certify COVID-19 Coverage Questions to Washington High Court

SEATTLE — A federal judge has refused to certify to the Washington Supreme Court the questions of whether COVID-19 shutdown orders cause “direct physical loss” to property and whether the “efficient proximate case” rule requires a factual determination of the predominant cause of a business’s loss before a virus exclusion may be applied.

In an April 23 order, Judge Barbara J. Rothstein of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington noted that other federal courts have ruled upon the issues in similar COVID-19 coverage cases without resorting to certification.

The judge added that “the constitutional provision for …