Court Opinion

ID: 4739550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2021-08-12 17:33:58.3538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:08:23.544458
License: Public Domain

Schultheis, J.
(concurring) — Although I am required to agree with the result reached by the majority, the allegations made by Mike Okamoto, if true, certainly indicate unfair conduct by the Employment Security Department. The “Rights and Responsibilities” booklet, on which Mr. Okamoto relied, was not included in the record on appeal *500and I am not familiar with its contents. Presumably, it is written so that a layperson can understand the sum and substance included therein. If information contained in that booklet, which is distributed to those people who are seeking unemployment benefits, leads a claimant to reasonably believe that wages, for unemployment purposes, could potentially include wages earned from self-employment, the Department should be estopped from using case law and statutes not readily understandable and/or available to the average claimant in order to find to the contrary.
Particularly disturbing here was the fact that when Mr. Okamoto appeared for the December 30, 1998, hearing on the Department’s denial of unemployment compensation, the exhibits that he had carefully prepared and delivered to the Office of Administrative Hearings were not included in the file given to the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to consider. Mr. Okamoto, appearing pro se, supplied the ALJ with what information he had brought with him to the hearing. That information was later copied for the file. However, Mr. Okamoto had to come back to the hearing office at 8 o’clock the next morning to bring other documentation that should have already been contained in the file. I can imagine that arriving for a hearing only to find that the exhibits were missing could unnerve even an experienced attorney. Perhaps this is the reason that Mr. Okamoto failed to ask the ALJ to read into the record the portions of the booklet on which the ALJ relied.
I concur in the result, but am deeply disturbed by the apparent misunderstanding, which was caused by the Department.
Review denied at 145 Wn.2d 1022 (2002).