Metal Anarchy

Back in 2021, Metallica filed a lawsuit against insurer Lloyd’s Of London after the company allegedly refused to cover losses they suffered after their 2020 South American tour was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The band ultimately lost the case, but decided appeal. However, it appears that filing has since been struck down as well.

As previously reported, Metallica made the initial complaint after their “cancellation, abandonment and non-appearance insurance” policy was denied due to a policy that excludes communicable diseases. The group said that the decision was “an unreasonably restrictive interpretation of the policy” and that the company had breached their contract.

The group also argued that Lloyd’s “cannot conclusively say that the Pandemic is the efficient proximate cause of the cancellations because there are other adequately alleged causes that are covered under the Policy.” This includes “travel restrictions, the duty to mitigate damages, the need to ‘flatten the curve’ and stay-at-home orders.”

However, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled against the band, saying “the travel restrictions which caused the concert cancellations were a direct response to the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic.” The group then decided to appeal, but California’s Court Of Appeals ruled against them and scrapped their attempts to have the case heard before a jury.

According to Billboard, the decision was made by Justice Maria Stratton, who said it’s “absurd to think that government closures were not the result of Covid-19.” She continued:

“To paraphrase Taylor Swift: ‘We were there. We remember it all too well. There was no vaccine against Covid-19 in March 2020 and no drugs to treat it. Ventilators were in short supply. N-95 masks were all but non-existent. Patients were being treated in tents in hospital parking lots. The mortality rate of Covid-19 was unknown, but to give just one example of the potential fatality rate, by late March, 2020, New York City was using refrigerated trucks as temporary morgues. People were terrified.”

Stratton also took issue with the band’s decision to bring up the reopening of venues in 2022, saying “much had changed” by then. She added:

“People were in a position to make a more accurate cost-benefit analysis of restrictions versus potential illness. The fact that governments chose to lift restrictions at that point, two years after COVID-19 was first discovered, does not in any way call into question their reasons for imposing travel restrictions early in the pandemic.”