Court Opinion

ID: 9857005
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:10:46.351633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:50.104719
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
Contrary to the holding of the majority, I believe the rating system here involved (Rule 67 of the Insurance Commissioner) violates the clear statutory mandate that any rating system must be uniform.
The statute provides that classification of risks and premium rates “shall be uniform as to all insurers affected” (emphasis added; Ins. Code, § 11732) and any “change” in classification or rating system “shall ... be uniform as to all insurers affected.” (Emphasis added; id., § 11734.) Also under the law the state Fund must be “fairly competitive with other insurers” and shall be neither more nor less than self-supporting. (Id., § 11775.) It is conceded that the Fund may write only workmen’s compensation insurance and that only in connection with operations of an employer in this state; however under both plans as embodied in the commissioner’s Rule 67, there is taken into consideration multistate business, that is, business written in states other than California. In one plan, in addition, there is considered multiline business, that is, insurance in other fields such as third party liability insurance. Inasmuch as the Fund cannot engage in those types of business the rule cannot operate uniformly as to it. The basis upon which premiums must be calculated are entirely different. The Fund is not in a position to be fairly competitive. The Fund would be excluded, by the limitations on its powers, from a substantial portion of the workmen’s compensation insurance market and hence rates so based are not uniform. Uniformity must mean equality of opportunity. To permit the system of rates and classifications to be based *349on business of a character forbidden to the Fund plainly discriminates against the Fund and other insurers not engaged in multistate or multiline insurance business. With such discrimination there can be no uniformity which is required by the statute.
I would therefore reverse the judgment.
Shenk, J., concurred.
Appellants’ petition for a rehearing was denied March 28, 1956. Shenk, J., and Carter, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.