INTRODUCTION
This First Amended Petition is filed pursuant to leave granted by this Court on June 16, 2026, following the hearing on Respondent's Demurrer to the original Petition for Writ of Mandate and Complaint.
At that hearing, the Court inquired whether Petitioner, as a named insured, is properly identifiable as a “claimant” entitled to a “complete response” from Respondent. The answer is indisputable as a matter of law. Under 10 CCR § 2695.5(b), an insurer has a mandatory duty to furnish a “complete response” to a “claimant.” Under 10 CCR § 2695.2(f), a “first party claimant” explicitly includes a “named insured.” Petitioner is therefore, explicitly and textually, a “claimant” entitled to the protections and mandatory enforcement of 10 CCR § 2695.5(b) and Respondent's corresponding ministerial duty to respond.
Petitioner brings this Verified First Amended Petition for Peremptory Writ of Mandate to compel Respondent Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club (“IEAC”) to perform its ministerial duty to furnish a “complete response” under 10 CCR § 2695.5(b) associated with Claim No. 017439398 (the “Claim”), and to perform its ministerial duty to diligently pursue a thorough, fair, and objective investigation under 10 CCR § 2695.7(d). Petitioner is a beneficially interested party and a first party claimant within the meaning of 10 CCR § 2695.2(f), whose driving record was and is presently harmed, and whose professional opportunities remain in limbo, as a direct result of Respondent's failure to investigate and Respondent's failure to furnish a complete response based on facts then known.
This is, to Petitioner’s knowledge, a case of first impression. No published California decision has addressed whether a first party claimant may enforce, by writ of mandate, an insurer's ministerial duties under the Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations to furnish a complete and accurate response regarding the insurer's own investigation of a claim that resulted in an adverse report to the Department of Motor Vehicles—nor whether that enforcement may extend to compelling correction of the insurer's own erroneous transmission once the deficiency in its investigation is established. The absence of governing authority does not diminish the clarity of the ministerial duties at issue; it confirms that this Court is the first court asked to hold an insurer to them under these circumstances.
The novelty of this proceeding is further evidenced by the absence of any published statistical or regulatory data distinguishing the type of inquiry at issue here from the more conventional invocation of 10 CCR § 2695.5(b). The California Department of Insurance's published Annual Reports and Complaint Data Reports track consumer complaints by general category and by line of coverage, but neither the Department's public reporting nor its Special Investigative Unit Annual Report framework breaks down complaints or inquiries by the specific regulatory subsection invoked, let alone by whether the claimant's inquiry concerned the amount an insurer chose to pay on a claim, as is typical, or, as here, whether the claim should have been paid at all based on a thorough, fair, and objective investigation. Indeed, the Department of Insurance has taken the position in response to public records requests that data of this granularity, even in the aggregate, is confidential and not subject to disclosure. The absence of any tracked precedent for this precise category of inquiry is not a deficiency in Petitioner's case; it is independent confirmation that the question presented—whether a first party claimant may invoke 10 CCR § 2695.5(b) to challenge the threshold basis for an insurer's decision to pay a claim at all, rather than merely the amount paid—has not previously been studied, tracked, or adjudicated in this State.
Since October 15, 2025, Petitioner has diligently attempted to mitigate an extreme information asymmetry regarding a fraudulent third-party claim settled against Petitioner. While Petitioner initially and erroneously requested the Claim file under California Insurance Code § 2071—a statute governing fire insurance—this error does not absolve Respondent of its independent and ministerial duty under 10 CCR § 2695.5(b) mandating an insurer to furnish a complete response to a claimant's inquiry within fifteen (15) calendar days. Despite receiving Petitioner's formal, certified inquiries starting in December 2025, Respondent failed to provide any justification for its settlement until January 26, 2026—well past the statutory deadline—and even then, provided a response that was evasive, logically flawed, and, as alleged herein, materially false.
Respondent has insulated its arbitrary decision-making from review by withholding the complete response Petitioner is owed under 10 CCR § 2695.5(b), leaving Petitioner without the evidentiary basis needed to exercise his right to an administrative hearing under Vehicle Code § 14101 to contest a “negligent operator” point and refute responsibility. Without this Writ, Petitioner's right to that administrative hearing is hollow. Petitioner has exhausted his administrative remedies: the California Department of Insurance, the state agency charged with regulatory oversight of Respondent, has confirmed in writing that it cannot adjudicate or compel resolution of this dispute, and that only a court of law has the authority to do so. (Exhibit AA.) Because the law leaves Respondent with no discretion but to provide a complete and accurate response, and because no other avenue exists to correct the erroneous record Respondent's own incomplete investigation produced, a Writ of Mandate is the only adequate remedy to prevent further irreparable harm to Petitioner's professional output, career opportunities, and public driving record.
“For every wrong there is a remedy.” (Cal. Civ. Code § 3523.) Petitioner invokes this foundational Maxim of Jurisprudence as the structural anchor of this proceeding, because the wrong alleged here—an erroneous negligent operator point transmitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles on the strength of an incomplete and demonstrably false investigation—would otherwise have no remedy at all. A civil action for damages cannot correct a public record. Only this Court, through its writ power, can reach the precise wrong Respondent has caused.
