JUDGE QUOTES TAYLOR SWIFT IN RESPONDING TO METALLICA’S INSURANCE LAWSUIT

A California judge pulled from her musical knowledge, quoting a Taylor Swift song in denying Metallica’s insurance lawsuit related to a string of 2020 cancellations in South America.

Metallica had sought a legal ruling when their insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London did not cover their losses for canceling six dates in 2020 due to COVID restrictions for travel. The insurance company had stated that there was a clear exclusion in their contract for any losses accrued from “communicable diseases.”

Per Billboard, Justice Marcia Stratton stated that it was “absurd to think that government closures were not the result of Covid-19.” She then added in her written ruling, “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,” she continued. “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.”

What Metallica Was Arguing?
After a Los Angeles judge ruled against Metallica in December 2022, the band appealed the ruling. They had argued that a jury might have found a different cause for the concert cancellations other than COVID. Their legal team pointed to the fact that venues eventually re-opened in 2022 “despite the ongoing presence of COVID.”

But, in her ruling on Monday (March 18), Billboard reports that Stratton said that Metallica’s argument failed because “much had changed” by spring 2022.

“People were in a position to make a more accurate cost-benefit analysis of restrictions versus potential illness,” the justice wrote. “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.”

Metallica initially submitted that they suffered a $3,234,569 loss from the canceled shows.

Spencer Elden vs. Nirvana
Everyone is familiar with the cover for Nirvana’s 1991 album, Nevermind, even if you don’t happen to be a Nirvana fan. It features a four-month-old baby swimming in a pool, appearing to swim after a dollar bill that’s pierced by a fish hook.
In 2021, that baby, now 30-something-year-old Spencer Elden, sued Nirvana for child exploitation and pornography. He asked for $150,000 in damages from the defendants, which included Kurt Cobain’s estate, the photographer and Universal Music. There has been some legal back and forth since the original filing. A judge dismissed the case in Dec. 2021, leading Elden to refile in Feb. 2022. A resolution has not yet been found.

Paul McCartney vs. The Beatles
Paul McCartney has long been vilified as the man who broke up The Beatles, but that may not be the whole story. One of the reasons why this notion is so prevalent is due to the fact McCartney sued The Beatles in 1970.

He sought the dissolution of the band’s contractual partnership after his bandmates appointed Allen Klein to preside over the band’s financial affairs. “If I hadn’t [sued them], it would have all belonged to Allen Klein,” McCartney told British GQ in 2020. “The only way I was given to get us out of that was to do what I did…I also knew that, if I managed to save it, I would be saving it for them, too. Because they were about to give it away. They loved this guy Klein. And I was saying, ‘He’s a f—— idiot.'”