4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/04/22 - Apr 22, 2026

argument

4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/04/22

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One 1h 12m 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What are the opening statements and procedural setup for the ReadyLink vs. State Compensation case?

8:17

Amen.

Unknown 18:28

You

Unknown 18:41

can come up and get set up if you like. The appellate side is this side.

18:47

That's me. I'm the appellate. When you argue, make sure you're just looking for .

Unknown 20:03

The Supreme Court will sit and do stuff in Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. So they move around. I've been to the one in San Francisco. That's very nice too.

21:50

Thank you.

Unknown 22:20

Do, and then keleti.

31:01

Amen.

Unknown 31:31

Good morning, everyone. Please have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable as possible under the circumstances. We have a special set this morning in State Compensation Insurance Fund versus ReadyLink. I am joined on our panel today by Justice Doe to my right and Justice Kelty to my left. So with that, counsel for appellant, Mr. Pomerantz. Uh, if you'd like to approach the podium and if you will begin by stating your appearance for our recording and also indicate whether you'd like to reserve any of your time for rebuttal.

Drew Pomerantz 32:16

My name is Drew Pomerantz. Very happy to be here to represent my client, the Appellant ReadyLink Healthcare. And with the Court's permission, I'd like to reserve about two minutes for rebuttal.

Unknown 32:27

Very good. I'll let you know when you're getting close. How about

Drew Pomerantz 32:30

that? That sounds fine.

Unknown 32:31

Thank

Drew Pomerantz 32:31

you. Again, thank you, Honorable Court. Really happy to be here to be able to address this case. The first thing that I would like to address is the elephant or maybe one of the elephants in the room, which is how obvious it is that this dispute has gone on for far too long. My client wants it resolved as well, but not at the expense of getting it wrong, not at the expense of being deprived of a fair trial or a just result. Ironically, we're here today for essentially the same reason as we were six years ago when we were in front of this court, albeit a different panel, and that's because a trial judge sitting in Palm Springs ruled that certain issues had been fully and finally resolved in prior administrative proceedings, which they had not.

Drew Pomerantz 33:23

In 2020, this court reversed a judgment on the pleadings because the trial court erroneously held that the amount of premium had been firmly established at the administrative level. We're here today, six years later, because the trial court granted JNOV and new trial by erroneously finding that the applicability and the meaning of state funds contract and rate filing had been decided by the administrative law judge, neither of which is true. This error infected a number of rulings, both before and at trial, and it prevented my client from receiving a fair trial. And yet despite that, despite the court's errors, we still won a just and correct verdict because the jury correctly found that State Fund suffered no damages by not receiving the additional $555,000 in premium.

Drew Pomerantz 34:19

So we're here today to ask the court to again correct the trial court's errors and restore the jury's verdict. I'd like to start, if I might, by talking about the JNOV. I think that's the quickest one to deal with because we all know that if there's any substantial evidence to support the verdict, the JNOV must be reversed. Despite all of the Court's errors in truncating our case, we still were able to introduce certain substantial evidence all of which I'm about to talk about, which was undisputed. None of this evidence was in dispute. State Fund knew about our per diem payments throughout the relationship for six and a half years, yet they never included it as payroll in any audit other than the 2005-2006 policy year.

Drew Pomerantz 35:11

From that, it was a reasonable inference from the jury that State Fund did not need any additional premium in those other years to cover the ReadyLink account, pay for losses, and get a reasonable overhead and profit. We also know it's undisputed that for the policy year in question, State Fund did pay $250,000, excuse me, ReadyLink paid $250,000 in premium to State Fund for that year. We know that's true. That was not disputed. We also know that's not disputed that State Fund during their case in chief introduced no evidence that any additional premium was needed to cover expenses or losses for the 2005-2006 policy year.