Kinder

This proceeding raises the question whether the Insurance Commissioner of California (Commissioner), as liquidator of an insolvent workers’ compensation carrier, may use general assets of the insolvent to pay benefits to workers who failed to file written claims in the liquidation proceeding in conformity with Insurance Code sections 1021-1024. We have concluded that the claims procedure is not a bar to the payments involved here.

The issue was raised by an application filed by the Commissioner in the superior court seeking an order authorizing the Commissioner to continue to pay workers’ compensation to persons who had failed to file claims within the statutory six-month period for filing claims in the liquidation of the Eldorado Insurance Company. The superior court made an order, filed June 11, 1981, denying the application, holding “that payment on such claims as to which there has been no compliance with Insurance Code sections 1021, 1023 and 1024 may not be legally made by applicant.”

The Commissioner appealed from that order and concurrently filed in this court a petition for writ of mandate to review the June 11 order. We issued the alternative writ, since it…