Why Thomas Keller is Suing His Insurance Company

With the restaurant industry facing its most challenging time perhaps ever, chef Thomas Keller is suing his insurance provider. The chef and owner of French Laundry in California and Per Se in New York, had his lawyer John Houghtaling file for a Declaratory Judgement on behalf of Keller’s business interruption insurance policy against Hartford Fire Insurance Company.

The lawsuit requests the court make a legally binding decision on whether Keller’s policy with Hartford allows the chef to recover business losses suffered in connection with the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The restaurant industry is the largest private-sector employer in America — it’s a chosen profession employing more than 15.6 million Americans and contributes $1 trillion to the economy. This entire sector is crippled by a nationwide public health shutdown impacting countless livelihoods. We need insurance companies to do the right thing and save millions of jobs,” said Keller.

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“To avoid payments for a civil authority shut down the insurance industry is pushing out deceptive propaganda that the virus does not cause a dangerous condition to property. This is a lie, it’s untrue factually and legally. The insurance industry is pushing this out to governments and to their agents to deceive policyholders about the coverage they owe,” added Houghtaling.

The coronavirus crisis is set to damage much of the restaurant industry. So far, insurance companies have resisted any suggestion that they should cover restaurants’ losses.

Since the outbreak of SARS and Ebola in recent years, many insurers have inserted a clause in their policies to indemnify themselves from damage to business caused by this type of outbreak. By suing his insurer, Keller may be hoping to set a precedent that could pave the way to the rest of the U.S's restaurants being able to claim, at least partially for loss of earnings during the coronavirus crisis.

This is an important push from the chef and one we expect to gain traction as the U.S restaurant scene watches closely and waits for the results.