Founder Inst. Inc. v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co.

Decision Date22 October 2020
Docket NumberCase No. 20-cv-04466-VC
Citation497 F.Supp.3d 678
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of California
Parties FOUNDER INSTITUTE INCORPORATED, Plaintiff, v. HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, et al., Defendants.

497 F.Supp.3d 678

FOUNDER INSTITUTE INCORPORATED, Plaintiff,
v.
HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 20-cv-04466-VC

United States District Court, N.D. California.

Signed October 22, 2020


Sanjiv Nand Singh, Professional Law Corporation, San Francisco, CA, Michael Budi Indrajana, Indrajana Law Group, a Professional Law Corp., San Mateo, CA, for Plaintiff.

Melanie Atswei Ayerh, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Sarah D. Gordon, Steptoe and Johnson LLP, Washington, DC, Anthony John Anscombe, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, San Francisco, CA, for Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING MOTIONS TO DISMISS

Re: Dkt. Nos. 25, 26

VINCE CHHABRIA, United States District Judge

Sentinel's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is granted. Assuming—for argument's sake only—that the claim for loss of business income due to the shelter-in-place orders would otherwise be covered by Founder's insurance policy, the claim clearly falls within the virus exclusion for the reasons explained by Judge Corley in Franklin EWC, Inc. v. Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. , 488 F.Supp.3d 904, 906–07, (N.D. Cal. Sept. 22, 2020). See also

497 F.Supp.3d 679

Wilson v. Hartford Casualty Co. , 479 F.Supp.3d 353, 360–61, (E.D. Pa. Sept. 30, 2020) ; Diesel Barbershop, LLC v. State Farm Lloyds , 492 F.Supp.3d 417, 426–27, (W.D. Tex. Aug. 13, 2020).

Founder seeks to wriggle out of the exclusion by attaching a different label to its loss. Instead of characterizing it as a loss resulting from the risk of virus exposure at its building, Founder characterizes it as a loss resulting from respiratory droplets on surfaces at its building. Founder claims that "the droplets (not the virus itself) are the real focus of ordinances seeking to limit human to fomite to human transmission and should have been the real focus of damage or loss investigation by Defendants." The virus exclusion, according to Founder, does not exclude losses related to saliva or respiratory droplets. But even assuming the validity of this contorted characterization of the purpose behind the...

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