Opinion ID: 1191450
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: marital status and domestic responsibilities

Text: RCW 50.20.050(4) provides a separate exception to disqualification for employees who voluntarily quit work without good cause. This marital status and domestic responsibilities exception provides: Subsections (1) and (3) of this section shall not apply to an individual whose marital status or domestic responsibilities cause him or her to leave employment. Such an individual shall not be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits until he or she has requalified, either by obtaining bona fide work and earning wages of not less than the suspended weekly benefit amount in each of five calendar weeks or by reporting in person to the department during ten different calendar weeks and certifying on each occasion that he or she is ready, able, and willing to immediately accept any suitable work which may be offered, is actively seeking work pursuant to customary trade practices, and is utilizing such employment counseling and placement services as are available through the department. [2-4] We note at the outset that, while the definition of the term meretricious has lost its original derogatory connotation in recent court decisions, the term marital is still defined as of or relating to marriage or the marriage state. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1981). Absent a statutory definition, words of a statute must be accorded their ordinary meaning. Pacific First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. State, 92 Wn.2d 402, 409, 598 P.2d 387 (1979). The marital status exception thus does not cover Davis' situation. See also McFadden v. Elma Country Club, 26 Wn. App. 195, 613 P.2d 146 (1980) (prohibition against discrimination in real estate transactions because of marital status does not include discrimination against couples who choose to live together without being married). This court has held that, under RCW 50.20.050(4), a person who voluntarily leaves her job in order to marry and move to a place where it would be impracticable to commute to her old job leaves work because of marital status. Yamauchi, at 782. Davis urges this court to extend Yamauchi to cover single people who voluntarily leave employment to live in meretricious relationships. In Yamauchi, while we did not find that the marital status exception requires that the employee be married at the time of quitting employment, we did require a nexus between the employee's quitting employment and marriage; the employee was not entitled to benefits until the marriage actually took place. Yamauchi, at 781. The Yamauchi opinion does not cover leaving employment to live in a meretricious relationship. Davis also urges this court to extend our decision in In re Marriage of Lindsey, 101 Wn.2d 299, 678 P.2d 328 (1984) to cover her situation. In Lindsey, this court held that in disposing of property accumulated during a meretricious relationship, courts must examine the relationship and the property and make a just and equitable disposition. Lindsey overruled the rigid presumption of Creasman v. Boyle, 31 Wn.2d 345, 196 P.2d 835 (1948) that property acquired by a man and a woman not married to each other, but living together as husband and wife, is not community property, and thus belongs to the one with legal title. In Lindsey the concern was a fair distribution of property between two parties in a marriage-like union. Lindsey does not stand for the proposition that a meretricious relationship is the same as a marriage. As the California Supreme Court noted in the factually similar case of Norman v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., 34 Cal.3d 1, 7, 663 P.2d 904, 192 Cal. Rptr. 134 (1983), the extension of property distribution rights of spouses to partners in meretricious relationships does not elevate meretricious relationships themselves to the level of marriages for any and all purposes. Davis also argues that her relationship to Stephens gives rise to domestic responsibilities under RCW 50.20.050(4). The Department of Employment Security has promulgated interpretive regulations that define and limit the application of the domestic responsibilities exception of RCW 50.20.050(4). Those regulations are entitled to deference by this court. Franklin Cy. Sheriff's Office, 97 Wn.2d at 325. WAC 192-16-015(1) states in part: Domestic responsibilities mean obligations or duties relating to the individual's immediate family, and include the illness, disability, or death of a member of the claimant's `immediate family' as defined in WAC 192-16-013. Immediate family is defined in WAC 192-16-013(3)(b) as the individual's spouse, children (including unborn children), step-children, foster children, or parents of either spouse, whether living with the individual or not, and other relatives who temporarily or permanently reside in the individual's household. We see no reason to reject these regulations. They comport well with the dictionary definitions of domestic, as relating to the household or the family. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1981). The limitation of the domestic responsibilities exception to times of special need, such as illness or disability, also comports well with the purpose of the statute to protect those involuntarily unemployed. Davis' move to Port Angeles is not related to her immediate family or any responsibility within the scope of the statute and regulations. She is not entitled to the benefit of the domestic responsibilities exception.