Opinion ID: 1385051
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Court of Appeal Approach.

Text: The Court of Appeal agreed that section 1256 has an expansive definition of spouse, but it refused to apply the same expansive definition to section 1032. The court reasoned that the language of section 1032 was clear on its face, that spouse has a clear, unambiguous meaning, and that no statutory construction was necessary. Further, the Court of Appeal noted that the 1982 amendment to section 1256  expressly stating that domestic quits constitute good cause and expanding spouse to include imminent spouse  did not specifically mention section 1032. The court concluded the omission was intentional: We presume the Legislature was cognizant of the interrelationship of sections 1256 and 1032 and would have added a reference to the latter section as it easily could have done had it intended the definitions of `spouse' to coincide. The Court of Appeal also stated that, even assuming the statutes were in pari materia, an implied amendment of section 1032 by an express amendment of section 1256 would be inferred only if there were no reasonable basis for harmonizing the former with the latter as amended. ( Lambert v. Conrad (1960) 185 Cal. App.2d 85, 95 [8 Cal. Rptr. 56] disapproved on another point in Johnson & Johnson v. Superior Court (1985) 38 Cal.3d 243, 255, fn. 7 [211 Cal. Rptr. 517, 695 P.2d 1085].) The court suggested there was a reasonable basis for distinguishing between the word spouse as used in the two sections. The Court of Appeal noted that the only real policing of unemployment insurance claims is done by the employer whose reserve account is to be taxed, as only that employer has a financial incentive to investigate. Verification of one's status as an actual spouse is simple and generally beyond dispute, but the same cannot be said of imminent spouses. Hence, the Court of Appeal concluded that the Legislature may have intended employers to scrutinize claims made by imminent spouses through charges to the employer's reserve account whereas such scrutiny would be unnecessary in the case of an actual spouse.