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This is a follow up to a post last week where I provided a short commentary on a developing story about the Maine radio personality who was purportedly the subject of a claimed layoff.

In early 2020, even as the COVID-19 virus spread beyond China and took root on the North American continent, industry analysts confidently predicted that U.S. property insurers would largely escape the pernicious effects of this pandemic in light of their policies’ "direct physical loss" requirements as well as virus exclusions that were adopted in the aftermath of the 2003 SARS pandemic.

A Maine radio personality was recently the subject of a claimed layoff according to her employer, but according to the employee, she was terminated because she did return to work due to concerns about COVID-19.

The New Jersey Licensed Server Liability Act specifically states that a server shall be deemed to have been negligent only when the server served a visibly intoxicated patron or served a minor under circumstances where the server knew, or reasonably should have known, that the person was a minor.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis that has been gripping the state, Governor Gina Raimondo has issued a series of Executive Orders relaxing or suspending certain prior regulations that govern health care providers, health care entities, and health insurers.

It was welcome news when Governor Baker extended civil-suit immunity to medical providers in Massachusetts by signing S. 2640 on April 17, 2020. However, it is important for health care providers, risk managers, and general counsel in the Commonwealth to recognize the limits of the statute in both time and scope.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, we at Morrison Mahoney, while doing our best to juggle all of the real world responsibilities that have come along with it, have carefully considered the potential impact of the spread of the virus on future medical malpractice cases in Connecticut.

If you are like many Americans, you are probably reading this as you telework from home while weathering the COVID-19 storm. It is also probable that your organization has some sort of a telework cybersecurity policy, either as a limited part of its greater information security program, or one that was hastily put together in response to the pandemic.

Throughout the country, life as we previously knew it has been put on hold. All of the activities that previously made up our daily lives have stopped, and most of our time is spent at home.

While it is perhaps too early to determine the amount of insurance fraud that may be initiated by the current economic crisis, with unemployment skyrocketing and businesses shuttering, we will certainly see a spike in low-tiered insurance fraud scams that in the aggregate will be very substantial.