Court Opinion

ID: 9634009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:13:28.383485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:47.329443
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority holds that California’s attempt to regulate insurance does not fall within the realm of traditional state interests. I disagree. The legislative findings accompanying California Code of Civil Procedure § 354.4 recognize that thousands of California residents and citizens have often been deprived of their entitlement to benefits under certain insurance policies. S.1915, 1999-2000 Reg. Sess. (Cal.2000) at § 1(b). “States have broad authority to regulate the insurance industry.” Am. Ins. Ass’n v. Garamendi 539 U.S. 396, 434 n. 1, 123 S.Ct. 2374, 156 L.Ed.2d 376 (2003) (Ginsberg, J. dissenting) (citation omitted). California has not exceeded that authority merely by “assigning special significance to an insurer’s treatment arising out of a[] [particular] era....” Id. California’s interest in ensuring that its citizens are fairly treated by insurance companies over which the State exercises jurisdiction is hardly a superficial one.
The strength of this traditional state interest weighs against preemption in a case, such as the case before us, where there is doubt about the clarity of the conflict between state law and federal policy. Indeed, there is no conflict. I can find no evidence of any express federal policy forbidding states from using the term “Armenian Genocide.” The majority accurately states that the “federal government has made a conscious decision not to apply the politically charged label of ‘genocide’ to the deaths of [ ] Armenians during World War I.” Maj. Op. at 1061. Nowhere, however, does the majority point to any evidence of an express federal policy barring states from so doing.
The majority’s reliance on Deutsch v. Turner, 324 F.3d 692 (9th Cir.2003), is misplaced. Whether California has, while acting within its authority to regulate the insurance industry, intruded upon the province of the federal government has no bearing on the existence of, or conflict with, an express federal policy applicable to the states.
There is no express federal policy forbidding California from using the term “Armenian Genocide” in the course of exercising its traditional authority to regulate the insurance industry. Accordingly, I dissent. I would affirm the district court.