An American court displayed its musical culture this week by invoking lyrics by Taylor Swift to dismiss the rockers of Metallica, who claimed their insurance to cover their concerts canceled during the pandemic.
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The group had to give up six shows in South America in 2020, due to health restrictions imposed in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic. A shortfall of three million dollars, which he wanted to have covered by his insurance.
But the Los Angeles Court of Appeal rejected this request, recalling that the contract excluded contingencies linked to “communicable diseases”.
Metallica argued that the cancellations could be attributed to reasons other than the pandemic, as concerts resumed in 2022 despite the continued presence of the virus.
Teasing, the judges rejected the authors of the album “… And Justice For All” by paraphrasing the queen of pop, Taylor Swift, and her hit “All Too Well”.
“We were there. We remember it all too well,” they wrote in their decision published Monday, as in the song. In other words: “we were there, we remember it only too well.” If justice is blind, it seems far from being deaf.
“In March 2020, there was no vaccine against Covid-19 or drugs to treat it. Fans were in short supply. (…) Patients were treated in tents set up in hospital parking lots,” detailed the court.
“South American countries suspended visas and then closed their borders solely because of Covid-19,” recalled the judges. “It is absurd to think that government closures were not the consequence of Covid-19.”
The resumption of concerts in 2022 took place in a completely different context, after the marketing of vaccines, the court underlined.
“The fact that governments chose to lift restrictions at this time, two years after the discovery of Covid-19, in no way calls into question the reasons why they imposed travel restrictions at the start of the pandemic” , estimated the judges.
Already rejected at first instance, the case ends on a bitter note for Metallica, who will perhaps learn a lesson from it: if justice is blind, it seems far from being deaf.
