Virus Exclusion Defeats Manhattan Attorney’s Bid for COVID-19 Coverage

NEW YORK — A New York federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit in which a Manhattan attorney sought COVID-19 business interruption losses from Midvale Indemnity Co., ruling that the losses fall within the policy’s virus exclusion.

In a Jan. 27 order, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York explained that while plaintiff Michael Redenburg sought coverage for losses arising from state closure orders, those orders were issued in response to the COVID-19 virus.

“That the state’s stay-at-home orders were, in the sequence of causation, one step more proximate to Redenburg’s losses …