Ga. Federal Judge Tosses Restaurant’s COVID-19 Business Interruption Coverage Action

ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge has dismissed an Atlanta restaurant’s COVID-19 business interruption coverage lawsuit, ruling that a government stay-at-home order did not cause the eatery to sustain “direct physical loss of or damage” to its insured property or surrounding premises.

In an Oct. 6 order, Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia held that the order did not have an “immediate” effect on the plaintiffs’ dining rooms “without intervening persons, conditions, or agencies.”

“Under the Plaintiffs’ logic, a minute before the Georgia governor issued the order, the dining rooms …