Opinion ID: 1385051
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Development of Sections 1032 and 1256.

Text: Prior to 1977, there existed in section 1264 a rule of eligibility for unemployment insurance compensation which was known as the domestic quit rule. That section in essence provided that no unemployment benefits would be payable to an employee who voluntarily resigned from his or her employment to follow his or her spouse to another location which made a commute to the prior place of employment impractical. In 1977 the Legislature repealed the domestic quit rule after Borer v. Dept. of Employment Dev. (1976) 59 Cal. App.3d 250 [130 Cal. Rptr. 683] held that the rule unconstitutionally discriminated against female workers. By repealing section 1264, the Legislature permitted section 1256 to embody tacitly the philosophy that as a matter of public policy, a domestic quit should be considered good cause for quitting. Section 1256 at that time (1977) simply permitted the payment of unemployment benefits to employees who quit work for good cause. In 1979, the Legislature considered the corollary issue  the effect on the employer of the change it had just made in the domestic quit rule. It concluded that no single employer should bear the entire cost of such a change in the rule. Instead, the cost should be shared equally by all employers. The mechanism chosen to accomplish this goal was through the employers pool wherein the cost was borne by all employers. This intent was codified by an amendment to section 1032. The intent behind the amendment of section 1032 is stated in a legislative committee report as follows: Since the elimination of the `domestic quit' rule in 1977, several employers have been upset at having female employees quit for reasons totally unconnected with the job (i.e., to move with their husbands) and having their experience-rated UI taxes increased because of such quits. It feels fundamentally unjust to these employers to have their UI taxes increased for reasons totally beyond their control. There is a Balancing Account tax, to which all employers contribute equally instead of on an experience-rated basis, which could be charged with the `domestic quits' rather than charging the experience-rated accounts of individual employers.... [¶] This bill seeks to shift the cost of this one kind of `domestic quit' from individual employers' accounts to the balancing account. Another way of understanding this is that it would `socialize' the cost of `domestic quits.' That is, all employers would absorb the cost of `domestic quits' equally; the individual employer who happened to be the victim of a `domestic quit' would not be penalized by it. (Assem. Finance, Insurance and Commerce Com., Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 134 (1979-1980 Reg. Sess.) as amended Mar. 12, 1979; hereafter referred to as the 1979 Committee Report.) Thus, the Legislature intended section 1032 to be the corollary of section 1256; the sections are in pari materia. [4] In 1980, the EDD adopted section 1256-12 of title 22 of the California Code of Regulation, recognizing for the first time prospective as well as existing marital status as a domestic obligation that might impel a claimant to leave work for good cause. Expressly included was the situation where the claimant's prospective marriage is imminent and involves a relocation to another area because the claimant's future spouse has established or intends to establish his or her home there, and it is impossible or impractical for the claimant to commute to work from the other area. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 22, § 1256-12, subd. (b)(1).) In 1982 the Legislature amended section 1256 to state expressly that a domestic quit to move with a spouse constituted good cause. (Stats. 1982, ch. 1073, § 1.) An uncodified provision of the 1982 amendment states that the amendment to Section 1256 ... is intended ... to endorse the policy of the Employment Development Department, as expressed in its regulations, which distinguishes persons who are married or whose marriage is imminent from others in determining whether a person has left his or her most recent work without good cause when he or she leaves employment to accompany another person to a place from which it is impractical to commute to that employment. [5] (Stats. 1982, ch. 1073, § 13, pp. 3873-3874, italics added.) We embraced section 1256's expansive definition of spouse in both Norman v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 34 Cal.3d 1 and MacGregor v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1984) 37 Cal.3d 205 [207 Cal. Rptr. 823, 689 P.2d 453].