Citing Taylor Swift, Court Dismisses Metallica's Insurance Claim Over COVID-Cancelled Concerts

In an unusual ruling prompted by Taylor Swift's “All Too Well,” a California appeals court has dismissed Metallica's lawsuit demanding the insurance company pay more than $3 million in damages stemming from concerts canceled due to the pandemic COVID-19.

The ruling, issued Monday (March 18) by the California Court of Appeal, said six 2020 shows canceled by COVID-19 in South America were not covered by Metallica's insurance policy with Lloyd's of London, thanks to a clear exception to the contract for any resulting damages. from “communicable diseases”.

The legendary rock band had argued that the case should go to trial, as a jury could have decided that non-COVID reasons led to the cancellations. But Justice Maria Strattonpossibly citing Swift, he said it was “absurd to think that government shutdowns were not a result of Covid-19”.

“To paraphrase Taylor Swift: “We've been there. We remember it very well,” the justice wrote. “There was no vaccine against Covid-19 in March 2020 and no medicine to treat it. Fans were in short supply. N-95 masks were almost non-existent. Patients were treated in tents in hospital parking lots. The fatality rate of Covid-19 was unknown, but to give just one example of the potential fatality rate, until late March 2020, New York was using refrigerated trucks as temporary morgues. People were terrified.”

Metallica's case is one of several filed by musicians, venues, bars and other businesses seeking insurance coverage for damages caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has led to months of strict travel restrictions, forced closures and bans large concentrations.

But, as with Metallica, the majority of these lawsuits have so far been won by insurers. Many policies included express characters for problems caused by illness, such as the one in the band policy. Other policies, such as many for brick-and-mortar businesses, often required “physical damage” that is difficult to show with a pandemic shutdown.

The biggest such case in the music industry is a sweeping lawsuit filed by Live Nation, seeking coverage from Factory Mutual Insurance Co. for more than 10,000 shows (including 15 million tickets) canceled or postponed during the pandemic. After a judge refused to dismiss Live Nation's claims in 2022, the case remains pending.

Metallica sued Lloyd's of London in June 2021 after the insurance company refused to cover damages from their South American tour, which was scheduled to begin on April 15, 2020, but was postponed when the governments of Argentina, Chile and Brazil imposed strict restrictions amid the worsening pandemic.

Court documents show that in May 2020, the band submitted a $3,234,569 loss stemming from the canceled concerts, covering things like $184,996 in payroll for retained crew members. However, citing the disease exclusion, the insurer quickly denied the claim: “We regret to inform you that there is no coverage for this matter under this Policy,” the company wrote in a June 2020 response letter.

In December 2022, a Los Angeles judge dismissed Metallica's case and various arguments about why Lloyds should have paid for the concerts – including ruling that the cancellations were caused by travel restrictions that were “a direct response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic”.

In appealing that decision, Metallica argued that a jury might have found a different cause for the concert cancellations. The band's lawyers pointed to the fact that the venues later reopened and shows took place in 2022, “despite the continued presence of COVID”.

But in her ruling Monday, Judge Stratton said that argument missed the point. With the advent of vaccines and more information, “a lot has changed” by spring 2022.

“People were able to make a more accurate cost-benefit analysis of the restrictions against potential disease,” the justice wrote. “The fact that governments chose to lift restrictions at that point, two years after COVID-19 was first discovered, in no way challenges the reasons for imposing travel restrictions early in the pandemic.”

The judge also rejected several other arguments from Metallica, such as the claim that the policy did not cover COVID cancellations because it did not specifically use the term “virus”: “The policy's definition of communicable disease does not refer to any pathogen nor limit the exclusion to in those communicable diseases caused by specific pathogens.

Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.