Massachusetts
Massachusetts High Court Reheats Recipe in Restaurants' COVID-19 Insurance Denial
In a ruling against an upscale restaurant chain, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has affirmed its 2022 ruling that the COVID-19 virus does not trigger business interruption insurance because it does not cause “direct physical loss or damage.”
Davio’s restaurant chain sought to recover under its all-risk business policy issued by Strathmore Insurance Co. for businesses losses it suffered due to service restrictions and remediation efforts necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic
Strathmore, a subsidiary of Greater New York Mutual Insurance Co., denied Davio’s claims on the basis that the loss of business income was not “caused by direct physical loss of or damage to property,” as required under the policy. Davio’s filed suit and a Superior Court judge granted Strathmore’s motion to dismiss. The restaurants then appealed from the judgment of dismissal.
Strathmore was the defendant in the precedent-setting 2022 case in which it was sued by a different Boston-area restaurant group, Verveine Corp. The Verveine ruling was the first by a state supreme court on COVID-19-related business interruption claims filed against insurers across the country, the majority of which insurers have won.
Noting the similarities between the Verveine and Davio’s cases, the Supreme Judicial Court said it discerned “no reason to distinguish ” the Davio’s case from the Verveine case two years ago and affirmed that ruling.
Massachusetts: First State Top Court Gives Industry a Win in Covid-19 Claims Case
Davio’s claimed that the virus became physically present at its restaurants and the presence of the virus caused it to take “extraordinary measures,” which included “closing certain operations and services, substantially modifying others, restricting access to many of the properties, enforcing physical distancing, and undertaking extensive active efforts to repair, restore, and remediate the facilities.”
The restaurant firm also maintained that some surfaces and objects retained residual infectious virus even after cleaning, and “no amount of cleaning could prevent aerosolized infectious particles from attaching to surfaces after cleaning.”
However, the restaurants were able to continue operating “at reduced levels” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Davio’s locations include Boston’s Seaport, Foxboro, Lynnfield, Braintree and Chestnut Hill.
The high court faced the same question as it had addressed in Verveine — whether there was any “direct physical loss of or damage to” property — and again concluded that those words from the insurance policy require a physical alteration of the property and the COVID-19 virus did not physically alter or affect any of the insured property.
On the question of what constitutes a physical alteration of property, Verveine again provided the guidance that “property has not experienced physical loss or damage in the first place unless there needs to be active repair or remediation measures to correct the claimed damage or the business must move to a new location.”
Thus, the “evanescent presence of a harmful airborne substance that will quickly dissipate on its own, or surface-level contamination that can be removed by simple cleaning, does not physically alter or affect property.” In contrast, the “saturation, ingraining, or infiltration of a substance into the materials of a building or persistent pollution of a premises requiring active remediation efforts” does constitute a physical alteration.
The court noted that similar distinctions have been noted in COVID-19 insurance cases across the country and courts have reached the same conclusion “even when presented with detailed allegations regarding how the COVID-19 virus affects the air and surfaces around it.”
In Verveine, the Supreme Judicial Court assumed that the virus was physically present in the restaurants but explained that the suspension of business at the restaurants was “not in any way attributable to a direct physical effect on the plaintiffs’ property that can be described as loss or damage. As demonstrated by the restaurants’ continuing ability to provide takeout and other services, there were not physical effects on the property itself.”
Davio’s specifically alleged that “there have been hundreds (if not thousands) of infected guests on-site since the pandemic’s outset.” But the high court found that these allegations do not show that the virus physically altered or affected the insured property in any way. Rather, they show the “evanescent presence of a harmful airborne substance,” and that there was no direct physical loss or damage to property.
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BOSTON – More than five inches of snow fell in several towns in eastern Massachusetts on Friday. Boston picked up 4.4″ of snow, one of the biggest snowfalls in almost three years.
Here are the latest snow totals from the National Weather Service, Rob Macedo, the SKYWARN Coordinator for the National Weather Service in Taunton, and WBZ-TV Weather Watchers.
Norwood 6.0 inches
Dedham 6.0
Walpole 5.5
Needham 5.5
Danvers 5.3
Topsfield 5.0
Cambridge 4.9
Newton 4.5
Boston 4.4
Randolph 4.0
Foxboro 4.0
Milford 3.2
Rehoboth 3.2
Millville 3.0
North Attleboro 2.0
West Yarmouth 2.0
Worcester 1.0
Massachusetts
Stunned Massachusetts educators, ADL call for MassCUE apology after ‘hateful’ anti-Israel and Holocaust rhetoric at conference
Local educators and the ADL are pushing for an apology from MassCUE after the group’s recent “jarring” conference when speakers reportedly spewed “hateful” anti-Israel and Holocaust rhetoric.
MassCUE’s fall education tech conference — held in partnership with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents at Gillette Stadium — apparently went off the rails during a panel on equity in education. That’s when the discussion reportedly delved into the current Middle East conflict in Israel and Gaza.
“Speakers leaned very heavily into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a very one-sided, dangerous rhetoric,” Uxbridge High School Principal Michael Rubin told the Herald.
That included references to “Israeli genocide” and “Israeli apartheid.”
A panelist also suggested that the teaching of the Holocaust has been one-sided, and “two perspectives needed to be taught,” recalled Rubin, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, during which the Nazis killed 6 million Jews.
“It was jarring, unexpected, and unprofessional,” added Rubin, who’s also the president of his synagogue.
Following complaints from several shocked conference attendees, the Anti-Defamation League’s New England chapter recently wrote a letter to MassCUE, as the ADL pushes for a public apology.
“It is difficult to understand why an organization dedicated to education and technology would allow a panel discussion ostensibly focused on school equity to instead veer into a complex and controversial foreign conflict,” ADL New England’s deputy director Sara Colb wrote to MassCUE’s leaders.
“It is all the more concerning that once the conversation veered in that direction it was not stopped or redirected to the advertised topic,” Colb added. “Allowing a presentation purporting to be about equity and inclusion in the classroom to include a one-sided narrative of a foreign conflict, replete with hateful, biased rhetoric, does a disservice to attendees by leaving them with a biased and misinformed account of the conflict.”
MassCUE (Massachusetts Computer Using Educators) is the Bay State affiliate of the International Society for Technology in Education.
More than two months after the fall conference, the organization has not addressed the Israeli-Palestinian discussion.
“At MassCUE we take feedback very seriously and work hard to ensure we take any and all necessary steps to address concerns that are brought to our attention,” said MassCUE Board President Casey Daigle. “This process takes time. Please know we are working through our procedures internally.”
The silence from MassCUE’s leaders has been “really concerning,” Rubin emphasized.
“How comments like these about the Holocaust don’t warrant an immediate response is really, really, really confusing to me,” added Rubin, who was given the 2024 MassCUE Administrator Award two days before this panel.
“If a student was targeted by a racial slur in our buildings, we would be involving local authorities, contacting families, sending a letter to the community, but MassCUE is working through their internal procedures. It doesn’t add up,” he said.
The executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents said M.A.S.S. was “troubled to hear that any of the speakers at the conference may have made statements that are inconsistent with the anti-racist values of our organization.”
“We are working with MassCUE to learn more about the content in question,” added Executive Director Mary Bourque.
Other than ADL’s push for a public apology from MassCUE, the ADL is calling for the organization to:
- Review its policies and vetting protocols for presentations at programs and make all necessary improvements to ensure that presenters stay on topic, and that “participants will not be subjected to this sort of inflammatory propaganda again.”
- Listen to the concerns of impacted members and participants, and elicit their thoughts on how to “counter the harm this presentation caused.”
- Issue a public statement acknowledging the problems with this program and reinforcing MassCUE’s values of inclusivity for everyone.
“At a time when incidents of antisemitic hate, including in our K-12 schools, are at record highs, it is deeply wrong and dangerous to provide a platform for such hateful rhetoric or to allow a platform to be hijacked for such purposes,” the ADL deputy director wrote. “It is surprising to have to make this point to educators who purport to be concerned with equitable and inclusive classrooms for all students.”
Massachusetts
Updated snowfall forecast: Latest timeline, expected totals map for snow in Massachusetts
Brace yourself! It’s back to winter in Massachusetts with snow in Friday’s forecast and a deep freeze this weekend.
Friday will be mostly cloudy and cool, but temperatures will drop through the afternoon and evening, increasing the chance for snowfall.
Bitter cold weather will follow the snow with arctic air gripping the region on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
Latest snowfall timeline
A few ocean-effect sprinkles and flurries are possible during the day, although impacts will be low with no more than a patchy coating, Boston 25 Meteorologist Shiri Spear said in her latest forecast.
Steadier rain and snow will fill in around 4 p.m. and impact the evening commute.
“As things cool down, the chance for snow is going to grow and grow during the late afternoon and evening hours,” Spear said. “Some of the worse travel conditions are probably going to be during the evening.”
The snowfall should wrap up by midnight.
An isolated snow shower or flurries are still possible on Saturday, but most areas will be dry with more clouds than sunshine.
Expected snow totals
A widespread coating to an inch of snow is likely for much of Massachusetts.
The “jackpot” areas, including northeastern Massachusetts, the Merrimack Valley, MetroWest, and interior southeastern Massachusetts could see 1-2 inches.
“Some spots could locally go up to 3 inches,” Spear said.
Cape Cod and the Islands might be too mild for sticking, but flakes will be flying.
Arctic air arrives
Frigid temperatures with highs in the upper 20s and low 30s are on tap for Saturday.
Sunday will bring freezing sunshine with temperatures in the teens and 20s.
For the latest on the forecast, visit the Boston 25 Weather page.
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