Founder Institute Incorporated v. Hartford Fire Insurance Company
Opinion
Trial Court Opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
FOUNDER INSTITUTE Case No. 20-cv-04466-VC
INCORPORATED,
Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO
DISMISS
v. Re: Dkt. No.
HARTFORD FIRE INSURANCE
COMPANY, et al., Defendants.
Hartford’s motion to dismiss is granted. For the reasons explained in the Court’s previous order (Docket No. 40), Founder’s claim for loss of business income still clearly falls within the virus exclusion. Founder raises a few new arguments, but they are no stronger than the earlier ones. First, the virus exclusion is “conspicuous, plain and clear” and thus not unenforceable under Hayes. Haynes v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 32 Cal. 4th 1198 (2004); see also Wilson v. Hartford Casualty Co., 2020 WL 5820800, at *7 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 30, 2020); Franklin EWC, Inc. v. Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., 2020 WL 5642483, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 22, 2020). Second, the virus exclusion is not illusory. See Shade Foods, Inc. v. Innovative Products Sales & Marketing, Inc., 78 Cal. App. 4th 874 (2000). As Hartford describes in its briefs, the exclusion permits coverage in a variety circumstances—circumstances dissimilar to the one…