Bradley Raps ‘Deep Pockets’ Initiative, Has His Own Cure

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley Thursday announced that he is opposed to the “deep pockets” liability initiative on the June ballot, saying it is too favorable to insurance companies.

Instead, Bradley offered his own program that he said would go further than the ballot measure in making insurance more available and more affordable. The mayor called the problem “a wildfire burning out of control.”

The Bradley plan includes proposals for an immediate freeze on all insurance rates and abolition of vehicle insurance rates based on where drivers live.

The initiative Bradley opposes--Proposition 51 on the June 3 ballot--would partially strip away existing California law that makes all defendants in a personal-injury or wrongful-death lawsuit equally responsible for payment. If the initiative passes, a defendant’s liability for “pain and suffering” would be limited to his degree of blame.

Lacks ‘Essentials’

Under the present doctrine, wealthy or heavily insured co-defendants--typically public agencies or big businesses with “deep pockets” of money--can be made to pay an entire award if other defendants are without resources.

In opposing Proposition 51, Bradley parted company with officials of most California cities and counties, which support the initiative.

Bradley said Thursday that while the initiative “has some of the protections” he seeks, “it fails to include comprehensive changes I think are essential. . . . (It) gives the insurance companies everything they want . . . (but) provides no assurance that insurance rates will go down or that coverage will be provided.”

Bradley made his proposal at a meeting of the California City Clerks Assn. in Westchester.

The issue of insurance--how to get it, keep it and pay for it--is expected to be a major theme in Bradley’s uphill campaign to unseat Gov. George Deukmejian.

In recent weeks Bradley several times has hit Deukmejian hard with criticism about toxic waste, including radio commercials charging that the governor’s Administration favors toxic polluters. After several press accounts pointed out that Bradley could prove no direct link between Deukmejian campaign contributions and toxic waste cleanup, some Bradley advisers have been urging the mayor to, as one aide put it, “get off the one-note with toxics for a while and go on to something that hits home with a lot of people.”

Deukmejian campaign director Larry Thomas said that by opposing Proposition 51, Bradley “abandoned his cities, taxpayers and virtually all of his fellow mayors and county supervisors” who support the measure.

Bradley signed a card that said he supported a change in the “deep pockets” law at a county supervisors meeting in Redding in December, before the initiative qualified for the ballot. He later said Proposition 51 was “only a partial answer” and Thursday said he has decided “to vote against” it.

‘Finger to the Wind’

Seeking to link Bradley’s “deep pockets” stand with reversals by the mayor on gun control and oil drilling in Pacific Palisades, Thomas said that the mayor showed “a lack of consistency, a penchant for abandoning principle that suggests his political compass is a wet finger to the wind.”

To that, Bradley press deputy Ali Webb said that Bradley signed the card “because he has been concerned about the concept of local governments being faced with liability problems. But he is saying now the problem is not just ‘deep pockets.’ We need to reform how the insurance companies do business.”

Bradley’s stand was also criticized by statewide government organizations, some of which have made passage of the “deep pockets” measure a top goal in this election year. A spokesman for the pro-Proposition 51 campaign called Bradley’s position “perplexing” and said he was “appalled” that Bradley “recycled the . . . fairy tale that Proposition 51 is the initiative of the insurance industry,” a position taken by other opponents.

Called ‘Courageous’

But Harry Snyder, an executive of Consumers Union, publisher of the magazine Consumer Reports, praised Bradley’s decision as “courageous. . . . Now local government officials will have to stop and reflect and say, ‘Wait a minute, the insurance industry hasn’t promised a damn thing.’ ”

Bradley called upon state Insurance Commissioner Bruce Bonner, a Deukmejian appointee, to institute a one-year freeze on all insurance premiums, and impose automatic renewal of insurance policies for everyone insured in the state except “individuals who have demonstrated poor safety records.”

Although Bradley said the commissioner has statutory power to institute a rate freeze, insurance department spokesman Everett Brookhart disagreed. “That’s incorrect. As far as I’ve been able to determine, that would be an illegal act,” Brookhart said. He added that it “would add much regulation and red tape to the system.”

Bradley’s plan, much of which would require state legislation, also includes suggestions to roll back rate increases, repeal insurance company exemptions from anti-trust laws, require insurance companies to file rate changes and to make financial data public. It would also give the insurance commissioner specific guidelines for determining if premium rates are excessive.

Bradley also proposed prohibiting mid-term policy cancellations; requiring insurance companies to provide especially expensive or hard-to-get coverage through a pooling mechanism; ending unjustified territorial auto insurance ratings; forcing companies to include the cost of legal representation in coverage, and creating a consumers’ public advocate in the Department of Insurance.