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Law360 (March 9, 2020, 7:37 PM EDT ) The spread of the novel coronavirus continued to impact U.S. courts Monday, with a New York judge postponing a trial the day it was scheduled to begin after counsel on the case revealed that a fellow lawyer who works in Quinn Emanuel's New York office tested positive.
On the opening day of trial in Lehman Brothers v. AG Financial, a long-simmering contract lawsuit over crisis-era credit derivatives, state court Justice Marcy Friedman agreed to postpone the proceedings after news broke Sunday that an unnamed attorney who works in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP's New York office tested positive for COVID-19.
Case counsel confirmed the infected attorney did not work on the case, but Quinn Emanuel has closed its New York City offices for the week.
"Immediately upon learning that one of our partners had tested positive for coronavirus over the weekend, I alerted Justice Friedman and opposing counsel to the concern," said Andrew J. Rossman, attorney for Lehman Brothers International (Europe), of Quinn Emanuel.
"At our request, the court granted an adjournment of today's proceedings so that the court and the parties can explore the best path forward for the scheduled trial," Rossman said.
In a statement Sunday, Quinn Emanuel said it received results over the weekend that showed a male partner had tested positive for COVID-19. His symptoms were minor and he was resting at home, according to the firm.
The partner has been home since March 2 "because of reported infections in his religious community in Westchester County," the firm said.
In another case in Delaware on Monday, attorneys from Labaton Sucharow LLP representing a class suing Dell Inc. over a stock reclassification that supposedly shortchanged public investors by billions informed the court that their co-lead counsel at Quinn Emanuel also works in the firm's New York office.
The letter informed Delaware Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster that while the Quinn Emanuel attorneys on the case do work in the same office as the attorney who tested positive for the virus, none of the team members have come into contact with the attorney in the last 14 days.
"While we do not believe that any member of plaintiff's litigation team has been exposed to COVID-19 ... we wish to ensure that the court and that counsel for all parties are fully apprised of the situation," the letter, penned by Labaton Sucharow partner Ned Weinberger, said.
A person familiar with the matter told Law360 that the vice chancellor provided the parties with the option to convert an upcoming hearing in the case from in-person to over-the-phone, but as of Monday evening, all of the attorneys on the case still planned to attend the hearing in person.
Other courts took more drastic action Monday, with the Southern District of New York restricting access to its courts, barring entry to anyone who recently traveled to the five countries that are hardest hit by the virus — China, South Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran — or those who have come into contact with it. The new policy applies to both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as U.S. bankruptcy courthouses in the district.
--Additional reporting by Martin Bricketto. Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.
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