The Court of Appeal (Males, Popplewell, Andrews LJJ) has today delivered a unanimous judgment dismissing all appeals and cross-appeals in the ‘at the premises’ test case for business interruption cover. This concerns the applicability of the Supreme Court’s approach to causation in the ‘FCA Test Case’ to disease and hybrid clauses providing cover for the occurrence of notifiable disease ‘at the premises’. The Court of Appeal confirmed that the concurrent causation approach adopted by Supreme Court was appropriate for ‘at the premises’ clauses – occurrences of Covid-19 at the insured premises together with all other cases of Covid-19 in the country were a cause of the closure of the claimants’ premises. The Court of Appeal also confirmed that:
- The term ‘Medical Officer of Health for the Public Authority’ has to be interpreted straightforwardly, and is most obviously directed at those at the national level responsible for collecting information about disease and analysing it, including the Chief Medical Officer and their Deputies.
- The inclusion of closures being required to be on the ‘advice’ or with the ‘approval’ of the Medical Officer of Health does not require that the officer needs to know about occurrence of disease at the premises.
Jeffrey Gruder KC and Mubarak Waseem were instructed by six policyholders in the Hairlab and Kaizen appeals.
The Judgment is available here.
