The range of issues covered in this column over the years would not be complete if I did not discuss COVID-related insurance claims. When addressing these claims, courts throughout the country have been true to policy language. Courts have enforced policy terms tying coverage to “direct physical damage” and upheld insurers’ denials.

A good context

On December 15, New York City issued clarifications to its prior vaccine mandate and those clarifications can be found here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccine-workplace-requirement.page.

As we advised in our prior bulletin, the New York City Commissioner of Health previously ordered that, commencing December 27, 2021, workers must have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to

The New York City Council just passed a new COVID vaccination bill requiring paid leave for parents per child per injection. Additionally, businesses and employees in New York City are subject to new vaccine mandates effective December 27, 2021, based on a recent announcement by outgoing Mayor de Blasio.

The new bill requires New York

Greg Miller offered his prediction for the 2022 workplace in the December issue of Commerce Magazine.

The magazine interviewed New Jersey’s top business leaders for their insights.

Miller stated, “The pandemic required law firms, like many other businesses, to quickly adapt to remote models to ensure continuity of client services. Having navigated those immediate challenges,

2020 changed the way family celebrated the holidays. This was especially true for families with loved ones in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). However, the 2021 holidays look like they will be brighter and visiting loved ones in SNFs will be easier thanks to new federal and state guidance.

On November 12, 2021, the Centers for

On October 25, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a new guidance and questions and answers regarding COVID-19 issues confronting employers and employees. The EEOC’s Technical Assistance is entitled “What You Should Know about COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act and Other EEO Laws.” This Technical Assistance also provides links and references

On September 6, 2021, New York Governor Hochul announced that the New York Commissioner of Health had designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to public health under the New York HERO Act (the “HERO Act”). This new designation requires all New York employers to implement workplace

Marc Ullman was interviewed for the Nutraingredients-USA article, “Synthetic glycans developer issued warning over failure to file IND in COVID-19 trials.”

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to Kaleido for the way they set up trials for its synthetic glycans product. The FDA’s position was that the trials were attempting to

Erez Glambosky, Jeremy Honig, Mark Antar and Matt Meisel won reargument and summary judgment against a guarantor of a commercial lease, successfully persuading the Brooklyn Supreme Court to reverse itself, acknowledge its prior error in interpreting a new COVID-related provision of the NYC Administrative Code, and agree with Rivkin Radler’s interpretation of the law.

Rivkin

In April 2020, in an article entitled, “Coronavirus and Statutes of Limitations in New York: A Lingering Effect?”, we discussed Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order 202.8, issued in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. We opined that, based on its language, it served to “toll,” rather than “suspend,” New York’s limitation periods.[1]

On June 2,

The Delta variant, which increased COVID cases and hospitalizations, also prompted new federal and local COVID rules and mandates, and required employers to revisit their existing COVID policies.

OSHA announced a new COVID Emergency Standard for health care employers to take effect in July 2021. This new Emergency Standard requires health care employers to address

The New York Department of Labor finally issued Model Safety Plans and Standards for airborne infectious diseases. All employers, regardless of size and with a worksite in New York, must adopt a safety plan by August 5, 2021, and must post, distribute and include the plan in their handbooks to all employees and new hires

On July 8, 2021, the New York City Department of Buildings issued Building Bulletin 2021-009 rescinding DOB’s Phase 1 Reopening Guidance and Building Bulletins 2020-006, 2020-010, 2020-015 and 2021-008. A copy of the BB 2021-009 may be found at the following link:  https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/bldgs_bulletins/bb_2021-009.pdf.

Each of these Building Bulletins and the Reopening Guidance dealt with procedures

Michael Troisi, Brian Bank, Michael Welch, Laura Mulholland, and Michelle Vizzi secured dismissal of a COVID-19 business interruption putative class action on behalf of Badger Mutual Insurance Company. Three insured Las Vegas restaurants sued Badger in federal court (District of Nevada) on behalf of themselves and a putative class of other policyholders seeking coverage for over

On March 10, 2021, the American Bar Association released new guidance for attorneys working remotely. While there has never been a distinction in the Model Rules for Professional Conduct between working in a brick-and-mortar office or working remotely, the prevalence of remote work has increased significantly within the last year. Attorneys will likely continue working