Opinion ID: 1165064
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Compliance with seek-work instructions.

Text: (4) The board argues the trial court erred in finding that Carroll did not comply diligently with seek-work instructions. We agree. The legislative history reinforces the board's conclusion that Carroll's registering at a state farm labor office and relying on its job information was reasonable compliance. The seek-work statute, as adopted in 1947, provided that claimant must comply with seek-work regulations. (See Stats. 1953, ch. 308, § 1253, subd. (c), p. 1501; Stats. 1947, ch. 651, § 1, pp. 1692-1693.) In 1961 it was amended to its current form. (Stats. 1961, ch. 2208, § 1, p. 4553.) For the first time the department was charged with directing claimants' work-search efforts in detail. The Legislature apparently believed it was unfair to make each claimant guess what seek-work effort was necessary to maintain eligibility in his case. It therefore eliminated the open-ended regulations requirement and substituted a mandate that the EDD give each claimant specific instructions  the guidance appropriate for his particular circumstance. Under subdivision (e) the claimant must adopt a course of action reasonably designed to result in his prompt employment in suitable work, considering the customary methods of obtaining work ... and the current condition of the labor market. (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 22, former § 1253, subd. (c)-1; see now §§ 1253, subd. (c)-2, 1253, subd. (e)-1(a); see also Unemp. Ins. Code, § 100.) (Pertinent sections of the Administrative Code are hereafter called the Regulations.) But his duty is circumscribed by the EDD's responsibility under subdivision (e) to design a proper course of action for each case. When the EDD is better situated than the claimant to know customary methods of obtaining work ... and the current condition of the labor market subdivision (e), sensibly read, means that he may rely on its advice or that of another state agency to which it has referred him. So far as the board's decision here reveals, when the EDD told Carroll to seek farm work, an occupation unfamiliar to him, its only specific instruction was to register at the state farm labor office. He did so [5] and was told that no farm work was available until tomato harvest. He had no contrary information, and there is no indication he knew or should have known farm labor conditions or hiring practices. If the office's advice was true, farm-to-farm inquiries would have been expensive, time-consuming, and useless. They would have detracted from his simultaneous efforts, also required by the EDD, to become reemployed as a caretaker. Under those circumstances and according the board the deference due its application of unemployment insurance law, we hold that it is a reasonable interpretation to conclude he had complied with the governing instructions. In any event the 1975 Regulations provided that registration alone might be deemed an adequate work search whenever the EDD found that for a particular locality, occupation, or class of claimant during a certain interval, the prospects of suitable job openings other than those listed with the public employment service are so remote that any effort to seek work other than by registration for work ... would be fruitless to the claimant and burdensome to employers, ... (Regs., former § 1253, subd. (c)-1; see now § 1253, subds. (e)-1(d).) In concluding that inquiries by Carroll would have been unreasonable after the labor office advice, the board utilized the fruitless and burdensome phrase in the regulation. That was a clear invocation of the registration-only rule. The board's opinion, on its face, provides no basis to repudiate its expert determination that his chances for farm employment before tomato harvest, or by individual inquiry, were remote. Thus the ruling that he complied with seek-work requirements under subdivision (e) must be upheld.