Court Opinion

ID: 9632410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:14:00.772517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:15.531530
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I concur in the judgment.
It is undisputed that claimants left their work because of a trade dispute within the meaning of section 56(a) of the Unemployment Insurance Act. (See Matson Terminals, Inc. v. California Emp. Com., 24 Cal.2d 695, 702-704 [151 P.2d 202] ; Bodinson Mfg. Co. v. California Emp. Com., 17 Cal.2d 321, 328 [109 P.2d 935].) The only question presented, therefore, is whether or not they remained out of work by reason of the fact that the trade dispute was still in active progress in the establishment in which they were employed. For the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion in Southern California Jockey Club v. California Racing Board, 36 Cal.2d 167, 178 [223 P.2d 1], and the dissenting *507opinions cited therein, it is my opinion that claimants were not entitled to a limited trial de novo on this issue; whether or not the right to unemployment insurance benefits is a property right. Accordingly, the only issue properly before the trial court and now before this court is whether the findings of the appeals board are supported by substantial evidence.
In Mark Hopkins, Inc. v. California Emp. Com., 24 Cal.2d 744 [151 P.2d 229, 154 A.L.R 1081], this court said regarding the tests for determining the duration of the disqualification under section 56(a), when the original unemployment had been superseded by new employment: “A claimant is thus ineligible for benefits if the trade dispute is the direct cause of his continuing out of work. If a claimant who leaves his work because of a trade dispute subsequently obtains a permanent full-time job, however, he is no longer out of work and the continuity of his unemployment is broken. If he loses his new job for reasons unrelated to the dispute, he is unemployed by reason, not of the trade dispute, but of the loss of the new employment [citations]. The trade dispute that caused him to leave his original employment is not the cause of his subsequent unemployment, and he would no more be disqualified from receiving benefits for such unemployment than if he had not been previously employed in the struck establishment.
“The termination of a claimant’s disqualification by subsequent employment thus depends on whether it breaks the continuity of the claimant’s unemployment and the causal connection between his unemployment and the trade dispute.”
In the present case the appeals board was of the opinion that an unequivocal discharge would also break the causal connection between the unemployment and the trade dispute. It found, however, that by issuing the employment termination notices the employer did not unequivocally terminate the employment relationship.
There is evidence that the employer customarily used the employment termination notices not only when an employee resigned or was discharged, but for the purpose of terminating an employee’s continuous service record under the “Continuous Service Compensation Plan” when he was absent without leave for more than three days. Accordingly, the purpose for which the notices were used in the present case cannot be determined from their provisions alone.
*508During the period the employer issued the termination notices it also sent to all employees and former employees the following notice:
“All Employees and former Employees not working because of the strike or strike conditions are requested and urged to return to work immediately or as soon as such conditions cease to exist.
“Failure to comply with this request may result in other persons being employed in your place.”
It may reasonably be inferred that the employer was not discharging employees it was urging to return to work, and that the termination notices were therefore neither intended to sever nor understood by claimants as severing the employer-employee relationship. Moreover, the notice urging the employees to return to work itself indicated that they would retain their status until other persons were employed in their place.
Since the determination of the appeals board was supported by substantial evidence, I concur in the reversal of the judgment.
Edmonds, J., concurred.