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Low v. Golden Eagle Insurance Co.11/20/2002
orderly liquidation of insolvent insurers and the protection of their policyholders and the public. (See, e.g., Carpenter v. Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. (1937) 10 Cal.2d 307, 329 (Carpenter) ["Neither the [insurance] company nor a policyholder has the inviolate rights that characterize private contracts. The contract of the policyholder is subject to the reasonable exercise of the state's police power."].) A corollary of that broad power is the judiciary's limited scope of inquiry into the liquidation trustees' grounds for rejecting claims for compensation by policyholders. As the Carpenter court put the ruling standard, "The only restriction on the exercise of this power [to administer liquidation proceedings under the Insurance Code] is that the state's action shall be reasonably related to the public interest and shall not be arbitrary or improperly discriminatory." (Ibid.)
That seminal formulation has since been glossed repeatedly to mean the measure of judicial review in such proceedings is the familiar "abuse of discretion" standard. (See, e.g., In re Executive Life Ins. Co. (1995) 32 Cal.App.4th 344, 358 ["review is not de novo. The trial court reviews the Commissioner's actions under the abuse of discretion standard [citation]: was the action arbitrary, i.e., unsupported by a rational basis . . . ."]; Commercial Nat. Bank v. Superior Court (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 393, 398; Garamendi v. Executive Life Ins. Co. (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 504, 515 [same].) Applying that circumscribed standard of appellate review to the record before us, we conclude neither the trial court nor the Insurance Commissioner abused their discretion in ruling the ERP exclusion of the policy in suit did not require the insurer to defend its insured.
CONCLUSION
The judgment of the superior court is affirmed.
We concur:
Kay, P.J.
Rivera, J.
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