The First District Court of Appeal took little time to dispose of California Insurance Company’s petition for a writ of mandate. Applied /CIC asked the court to review the San Mateo Superior Court’s approval of a rehabilitation plan that will ultimately usher the carrier out of California.
Applied Underwriters’ legal battle with the California Department continues unabated, with the company showing no signs of relenting in its years-long scorched earth-type litigation attempting to circumvent California’s regulatory authority.
CIC’s petition for a writ of mandate, filed earlier this month, continued its pattern of regurgitating many of the same arguments it lost in a lower court. In this case, the San Mateo Superior Court had already found the arguments unpersuasive.
Applied claimed in its filing that the court-approved rehabilitation plan was unlawful and an abuse of the conservation process. The carrier alleges that the lower court’s decision “rests on multiple legal errors, constitutes an abuse of discretion, is otherwise unsupported by substantial evidence, and violates CIC’s constitutional rights.”
CIC filed a notice of appeal on the same day as the petition for writ of mandate.
The First District was clearly not swayed.
“The petition for writ of mandate is denied. A petitioner seeking a writ of mandate has the burden of showing that he or she does not have a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law,” the First District wrote in its order denying the petition. “A remedy by immediate direct appeal is presumed to be adequate, and a party seeking review by extraordinary writ bears the burden of demonstrating that appeal would not be an adequate remedy under the particular circumstances of that case. Petitioner has filed a notice of appeal of the same order it challenges in the instant petition (A170622) and has not met its burden of demonstrating the inadequacy of its remedy on appeal.”
There have been no substantive filings in the appeal proceeding as of Workers’ Comp Executive’s deadline.
Case watchers expect Applied’s Appeal to be denied