Opinion ID: 1265400
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Unfair Competition Act

Text: Relying on this court's decision in Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187, 1201-1202 [17 Cal. Rptr.2d 828, 847 P.2d 1044], the Court of Appeal held that, because section 790.03 does not create a private civil cause of action, plaintiff could not plead around that limitation by relying on conduct which violates only the UIPA as the basis for a UCA cause of action. It held, however, that the trial court had properly overruled defendants' demurrers to the UCA cause of action because the conduct on which plaintiff predicated that cause of action also violated the Cartwright Act. Therefore, the conduct could form the basis for a cause of action under the UCA. (9) Defendant contends that this holding will seriously compromise our holding in Moradi-Shalal that there may be no private UIPA cause of action under section 790.03. The question the court addressed in Rubin v. Green, supra, 4 Cal.4th 1187, was whether allegedly improper solicitation by an attorney, which could not form the basis of a tort action because the conduct fell within the litigation privilege of Civil Code section 47, subdivision (b), could be the basis of an action for injunctive relief under the UCA. Plaintiff's theory was that the conduct could do so as it was prohibited by Business and Professions Code sections 6152 and 6153. Therefore, it was a species of unfair competition as to which, under Business and Professions Code section 17204, plaintiff, acting in the interests of the general public, had standing to seek an injunction. [16] The court held that the plaintiff could not plead around the absolute bar to relief created by the litigation privilege by recasting the cause of action as one for unfair competition. It analogized such pleading to the attempts to avoid the bar to implied private causes of action under section 790.03, which several Courts of Appeal had held could not be avoided by characterizing the claim as one under the UCA. (See Safeco Ins. Co. v. Superior Court (1990) 216 Cal. App.3d 1491 [265 Cal. Rptr. 585]; Maler v. Superior Court, supra, 220 Cal. App.3d 1592; Industrial Indemnity Co. v. Superior Court (1989) 209 Cal. App.3d 1093 [257 Cal. Rptr. 655]; Lee v. Travelers Companies (1988) 205 Cal. App.3d 691, 694-695 [252 Cal. Rptr. 468]; Doctors' Co. Ins. Services v. Superior Court (1990) 225 Cal. App.3d 1284, 1289 [275 Cal. Rptr. 674]; American Internat. Group, Inc. v. Superior Court (1991) 234 Cal. App.3d 749, 768 [285 Cal. Rptr. 765].) As the Court of Appeal here recognized, however, a cause of action for unfair competition based on conduct made unlawful by the Cartwright Act is not an implied cause of action which Moradi-Shalal held could not be found in the UIPA. There is no attempt to use the UCA to confer private standing to enforce a provision of the UIPA. Nor is the cause of action based on conduct which is absolutely privileged or immunized by another statute, such as the litigation privilege of Civil Code section 47, subdivision (b). This conclusion does not compromise the rule of Moradi-Shalal in any way. The court concluded there that the Legislature did not intend to create new causes of action when it described unlawful insurance business practices in section 790.03, and therefore that section did not create a private cause of action under the UIPA. The court did not hold that by identifying practices that are unlawful in the insurance industry, practices that violate the Cartwright Act, the Legislature intended to bar Cartwright Act causes of action based on those practices. Nothing in the UIPA would support such a conclusion. The UIPA nowhere reflects legislative intent to repeal the Cartwright Act insofar as it applies to the insurance industry, and the Legislature has clearly stated its intent that the remedies and penalties under the UCA are cumulative to other remedies and penalties. [17]