Pacificare Life & Health Ins. Co. v. Lara CA4/3
This is a complicated case with a voluminous record. To borrow a phrase used by one counsel during oral argument, it is “a beast.”
It began when PacifiCare Life and Health Insurance Company (PacifiCare) petitioned for a writ of mandate, seeking to reverse a penalty of nearly $175 million assessed against it by the Insurance Commissioner of the State of California (the Commissioner). The penalty was not a single assessment; rather it was the sum of penalties assessed for 19 distinct categories of wrongdoing, each involving anywhere from 2 to 462,805 violations. The total number of alleged violations exceeds 900,000. The Decision was 220 pages long; the trial court’s statement of decision, which is a primary focus of this appeal and is incorporated by reference into its judgment granting the writ of mandate, is 43 pages long. The administrative record exceeds 50,000 pages.
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