§33-10-2 Jurisdiction, venue and appeal of delinquency proceedings; exclusive remedy.
§33-10-2. Jurisdiction, venue and appeal of delinquency proceedings; exclusive remedy.
(a) The circuit courts of this state or the judges thereof in vacation are vested with exclusive original jurisdiction of delinquency proceedings under this article, and are authorized to make all necessary and proper orders to carry out the purposes of this article.
(b) The venue of delinquency proceedings against a domestic insurer shall be in the circuit court of the county of the insurer's principal place of business. The venue of such proceedings against foreign insurers, alien insurers or domestic insurers in which their principal place of business is outside of the state of West Virginia shall be in the circuit court of Kanawha County.
(c) With the exception of administrative supervision pursuant to article thirty-four of this chapter, delinquency proceedings pursuant to this article shall constitute the sole and exclusive method of liquidating, rehabilitating, reorganizing or conserving an insurer and no court shall entertain a petition for the commencement of such proceedings unless the same has been filed in the name of the state on the relation of the insurance commissioner.
(d) An appeal shall lie to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals from an order granting or refusing rehabilitation, liquidation or conservation and from every other order in delinquency proceedings having the character of a final order as to the particular portion of the proceedings embraced therein. Appeals from orders granting or refusing rehabilitation, liquidation or conservation shall be prosecuted pursuant to section four-d of this article.
(e) At any time after an order is made under section ten or eleven of this article, the commissioner may remove the principal office of the insurer proceeded against to Kanawha County. In the event of such removal, the court wherein the proceeding was originally commenced shall, upon the application of the commissioner, direct its clerk to transmit all the pleadings, motions and other papers filed therein with such clerk to the clerk of the circuit court of Kanawha County. The proceeding shall thereafter be subject to the jurisdiction of the Kanawha County circuit court and conducted in the same manner as though it had been commenced in the Kanawha County circuit court.