High Court Asked to Defer to Voters’ Stand on Prop. 103

An appeal to state Supreme Court justices to show “deference” to the judgment of the voters who approved Proposition 103, by upholding the measure’s constitutionality, has been made by lawyers for six South Los Angeles drivers who lost an important auto insurance class-action case before the high court two years ago.

In that suit, Public Advocates Inc. asked the court for an order requiring the Legislature, which had made auto insurance mandatory, to act so that coverage would be more available and affordable. The court’s refusal to issue such an order is credited by some with fueling the reform drive that led to five insurance initiatives on the 1988 ballot.

In a letter last week to each of the seven Supreme Court justices, lawyers Armando M. Menocal III and Lois Salisbury of Public Advocates quoted from suggestions that the Supreme Court had made in dismissing the class-action suit and contended that in passing Proposition 103, the electorate had been acting in pursuit of those suggestions.

Accordingly, they told the justices, “We ask that the solution crafted and enacted by the people, Proposition 103, be respected and deferred to by this court.”

The Supreme Court has stayed the rate rollbacks in Proposition 103, pending its constitutional review, but in the meantime has allowed almost all the rest of it to tentatively go into effect. The insurance industry lawsuit now before the court, however, asks the justices to strike down all of Proposition 103.

In their letter, Menocal and Salisbury noted that since enforcement of the mandatory auto insurance law began at the end of 1987, the state Department of Motor Vehicles says it has suspended 250,000 licenses of drivers caught without the required auto liability insurance.

The thrust of the class-action suit brought mainly on behalf of minority drivers in South and East Los Angeles was that under the territorial rating system used by insurance companies, the insurance cost more in low-income, central city areas than anywhere else. The suit asked for relief.

The high court, turning this down, said the plaintiffs had not gone to the right place for relief. “Their case should be made to the Legislature, not to this court,” the justices ruled.

Menocal and Salisbury said in their letter that after the decision, “the Legislature struggled unsuccessfully for an entire year to solve the problem,” leading those seeking relief to turn to the initiative process.

“Ultimately, the voters of the State of California took action, passing Proposition 103,” they said, adding that certain provisions of the measure, reducing territorial ratings as a factor in pricing, rolling back rates and setting new competitive guidelines for the sale of insurance “will correct many of the profound inequities and frustrations” that their class-action suit had been aimed at redressing.

Salisbury, interviewed Sunday, said: “What’s unusual in all of this is the quick sequence of events. Within a year of the time the court told us to seek redress through legislation, the Legislature foundered and the public did take action, legislating on its own.”

Had the Supreme Court acted affirmatively on the class-action suit, she contended, “the pressure to provide more affordable insurance might have been alleviated without an initiative.