Court Opinion

ID: 9794565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:08:05.061753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:54.528545
License: Public Domain

BROUSSARD, J.
I dissent.
Plaintiff is entitled to unemployment benefits if she left work for “good cause.” (Unemp. Ins. Code, § 1256.) The trial court found that plaintiff’s decision to move to Washington State to live with her fiance met that standard. The majority, however, reject that finding on the ground that plaintiff and her fiance were not yet married and did not plan to marry promptly upon her arrival in Washington.1
*11In my opinion, section 1256 envisions a case-by-case determination of “good cause.” While the courts may reasonably create an evidentiary presumption that a married person, or one about to be married, acts with “good cause” when he leaves work to join his spouse, we have no authority to create a rule denying a nonmarital partner the right to prove that he too acted with “good cause” in leaving employment. We cannot deny the fact that a nonmarital relationship can acquire such significance and importance in the lives and hopes of the persons involved that one partner may reasonably and in good faith decide that preserving the relationship justifies terminating current employment. If the partner can thus prove “good cause” without resort to any evidentiary presumption, he is entitled to unemployment benefits.
The trial court in the present case held that plaintiff proved that she left work for “good cause” as that term is defined in the relevant judicial decisions and administrative regulations. The majority do not point to any defect in plaintiff’s proof. They show only that she was not married or about to be married—a showing sufficient to deprive her of the advantages of the presumption but insufficient to deprive her of benefits if she proves “good cause” without resort to the presumption. We should therefore affirm the judgment of the trial court awarding unemployment compensation.
To support this conclusion, I turn to specific language of section 1256, to the cases construing that language, and to the implementing regulations promulgated by the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Section 1256 provides that “[a]n individual is disqualified for unemployment compensation benefits if ... he has left his most recent work voluntarily without good cause. ” (Italics added.) The term “good cause” in this section is the kind of broad, open-ended language that the Legislature uses when it foregoes making *12specific rules in favor of individualized, case-by-case consideration. Recognizing this legislative purpose, in the only decision of this court to discuss the concept of “good cause” in section 1256, we stated that “[i]n view of the statutory objectives ... the concept of ‘good cause’ cannot be arbitrarily limited; the board must take account of ‘ “real circumstances, substantial reasons, objective conditions, palpable forces that operate to produce correlative results, adequate excuses that will bear the test of reason, just grounds for action, and always the element of good faith. ” ’” (Gibson v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 494, 499, fn. 8 [108 Cal.Rptr. 1, 509 P.2d 945], quoting Cal. Portland Cement Co. v. Cal. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1960) 178 Cal.App.2d 263, 272-273 [3 Cal.Rptr. 37].)
The Court of Appeal decision in Zorrero v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1975) 47 Cal.App.3d 434, 439 [120 Cal.Rptr. 855], elucidates this broad conception of “good cause.” Zorrero explains that: “The term ‘good cause’ is not susceptible of precise definition. In fact, its definition varies with the context in which it is used. Very broadly, it means a legally sufficient ground or reason for a certain action, [f] ‘In general “good cause,” as used in an unemployment compensation statute, means such a cause as justifies an employee’s voluntarily leaving the ranks of the employed and joining the ranks of the unemployed; the quitting must be for such a cause as would reasonably motivate in a similar situation the average able-bodied and qualified worker to give up his or her employment with its certain wage rewards in order to enter the ranks of the compensated unemployed.’ (81 C.J.S. Social Security And Public Welfare, § 167, p. 253.) [|] ‘ “Good cause” cannot be determined in the abstract any more than can any other legal conclusion. It can be determined only in relation to a set of facts.’ (Cal. Portland Cement Co. v. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Appeals Board, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d 263, at p. 274.)” (P. 439.) Evenson v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1976) 62 Cal.App.3d 1005, 1016 [133 Cal.Rptr. 488], employs the same language.2
The Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board’s 1980 regulations promulgate an equally broad definition. “ ‘Good cause’ exists for leaving work when a substantial motivating factor in causing the claimant to leave work, at the time of leaving, whether or not work connected, is real, substantial, and compelling and would cause a reasonable person genuinely desirous of retaining employment to leave work under the same circumstances.” (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 22, § 1256-3.)
*13The 1980 regulations, however, go beyond this broad definition to set out certain circumstances under which leaving work because of domestic circumstances will constitute good cause. (§ 1256-9.)3 They provide specifically that a claimant has good cause to leave work if the claimant is married and must accompany his or her spouse “to preserve family unity”4 (§ 1256-12), or if “[t]he 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” (id.). The effect of these regulations is to establish a limited presumption in favor of a person about to become married. Such a claimant does not need to prove that his or her marriage is a substantial and important relationship, one worth preserving even at the expense of unemployment. The state will presume that marriages are worth saving, and require the claimant only to prove that he cannot reasonably commute to his former job from the new marital home.
These regulations depart from the case-by-case analysis required by the cited judicial decisions and by the principles set out in regulation 1256-3. That departure, however, furthers the state’s policy favoring the preservation of marital relationships. (See generally Marvin v. Marvin (1976) 18 Cal.3d 660, 684 [134 Cal.Rptr. 815, 557 P.2d 106].) It finds support also in the recognized policy that “[t]he provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Code must be liberally construed to further the legislative objective of reducing the hardship of unemployment. ” (Gilles v. Department of Human Resources Development (1974) 11 Cal.3d 313, 325 [113 Cal.Rptr. 374, 521 P.2d 110, 90 A.L.R.3d 970]; Gibson v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 9 Cal.3d 494, 499; Prescod v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1976) 57 Cal.App.3d 29, 40 [127 Cal.Rptr. 540].) Together, the two policies justify providing benefits where necessary to preserve the marital relationship without requiring case-by-case proof of the value and stability of the relationship.
*14The state’s policy in favor of marriage, however, does not imply a corresponding policy against nonmarital relationships. The courts recognize that such relationships are common and pervasive (see Marvin v. Marvin, supra, 18 Cal.3d 660, 683), give rise to legal and moral obligations (id., at pp. 682-684), and generate reasonable expectations which warrant judicial protection (id., at p. 684). The state should not seek to destroy such relationships or stigmatize their members, but should respect the fact that reasonable men and women, in deciding where to live and work, consider the values and benefits of a significant nonmarital relationship, and take account of the needs and aspirations of their partner.
Accordingly, I would hold that if a member of a nonmarital relationship can show that his motive in leaving employment “is real, substantial, and compelling, and would cause a reasonable person genuinely desirous of retaining employment to leave work under the same circumstances” (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 22, § 1256-3; see Zorrero v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 47 Cal.App.3d 434, 439), he should be entitled to unemployment compensation. He cannot rely on any administrative or judicial presumptions for aid, but will have to prove that the relationship is a substantial and important one, such that a reasonable person genuinely desirous of retaining employment would still choose to leave work in order to preserve the relationship. If he can meet this burden of proof, however, he is entitled to the statutory benefits. As explained by Justice Feinberg in the Court of Appeal decision in this case: “All that section 1256 requires is ‘an adequate cause . . . that comports with the purposes of the Unemployment Insurance Code and with other laws.’ The purpose of the Unemployment Insurance Laws is to relieve the burden caused by unemployment (Unemp. Ins. Code, § 100), namely, to act as a buffer against the ravages of sudden and unexpected loss of one’s livelihood. [Citation.] These ravages are experienced as directly by a de facto spouse as by a legal spouse.”
I recognize that a case-by-case determination will impose an administrative burden: the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board will have to determine whether a nonmarital relationship is substantial and important enough to justify the worker’s decision to leave employment. (Cf. In re Cummings (1982) 30 Cal.3d 870, 875 [180 Cal.Rptr. 826, 640 P.2d 1101] (conc. opn. of Bird, C. J.).) It is always easier to apply black letter rules than to take account of ““‘real circumstances, substantial reasons, objective conditions, . . . just grounds for action, and always the element of good faith” ’ ” (Gibson v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 9 Cal.3d 494, 499, fn. 8). But judicial creation of a rule that would deny benefits to persons who can prove they acted reasonably, based on serious and exigent circumstances (Zorrero v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 47 Cal.App.3d 434, 439), in leaving employment would constitute judicial amendment of section 1256, contravening both the purpose of that section and the policy of liberal construction of the unemployment insurance laws.
*15The facts of the present case support the trial court’s conclusion that plaintiff left employment with “good cause” and was thus entitled to unemployment benefits. As of September 1979, when she left her California job with Mohawk Data Sciences Corporation, plaintiff had been living with her fiance, Stephen Bee, for about three years. They lived together as a married couple, sharing all income and expenses, and planned to marry the following June. Bee went to Washington State to work as a carpenter in June of 1979, and decided to remain there permanently. He asked plaintiff to join him in Washington. As plaintiff testified, this request “kind of put me on the spot, either come up here and live with him ... in Washington or to break up.” After looking into job opportunities in Washington, plaintiff decided to leave her employment, and resigned effective September 7, 1979.5
I find it difficult to understand how one could dispute the conclusion that plaintiff acted with “good cause” in moving to Washington. Can anyone really maintain that a close, intimate, and potentially lifelong relationship is necessarily less important than a job—that a reasonable person would never quit a job to maintain such a relationship? Certainly on the record before us there is nothing to suggest that plaintiff’s decision to move to Washington was unreasonable, or done without good and sufficient justification.
The majority, however, insist that in denying benefits to plaintiff, and to nonmarital partners generally, they are merely carrying out a legislative decision despite the fact that they cite no evidence that the Legislature ever made such a decision and no statute embodying any such decision.6 The cases they *16cite demonstrate only that the Legislature has on occasion decided to limit certain benefits to married persons and expressly stated those limits in the statute conferring the benefits. (See People v. Delph (1979) 94 Cal.App.3d 411, 415-416 [156 Cal.Rptr. 422, 4 A.L.R.4th 416] (marital communication privilege of Evid. Code, §§ 970 and 980); Harrod v. Pacific Southwest Airlines, Inc. (1981) 118 Cal.App.3d 155 [173 Cal.Rptr. 68] (wrongful death benefits under Code Civ. Proc., § 377); Garcia v. Douglas Aircraft Co. (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 890 [184 Cal.Rptr. 390] (same); cf. Marvin v. Marvin, supra, 18 Cal.3d 660, 681 (Family Law Act).) Instead of supporting the majority’s position, these decisions show that when the Legislature intends to deny benefits to nonmarital partners, it does so expressly.
A more pertinent decision, I believe, is that of the Court of Appeal in Department of Industrial Relations v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1979) 94 Cal.App.3d 72 [156 Cal.Rptr. 183], since it construed a statute which, like the statute at issue in the present case, did not expressly limit benefits to married persons. Instead, Labor Code section 3503 granted workers’ compensation death benefits to all persons who were “in good faith a member of the family or household of the employee.” The court held a nonmarital partner who lived with the deceased employee was entitled to benefits as a “good faith” member of his household. If a nonmarital partner can be a “good faith” member of the household, I would think he would have “good cause” to leave work in order to move with the household.
The majority seek to distinguish this last precedent on the ground that it holds only that a person otherwise entitled to benefits is not barred by virtue of a non-marital relationship. But that, I submit, is precisely the effect of the majority’s holding. Plaintiff has shown “good cause” for leaving employment as that term has been defined in past cases, but the majority nevertheless deny benefits because that cause is based on a nonmarital relationship.
I do not claim that the state must equate marriage and nonmarital relationships in determining rights to unemployment compensation. To the contrary, the board and the courts may properly invoke a presumption of good cause to benefit a claimant who moves to maintain a present or imminent marriage, without granting a like presumption for persons in nonmarital relationships. But the presumption in favor of marriage should not lead us to refuse to recognize that there exist close, enduring, and significant nonmarital relationships, that such relationships may give rise to moral and (under Marvin) legal obligations, and that in a particular case the maintenance of such a relationship may constitute “good cause” for leaving employment. Finding that the plaintiff’s reasons for terminating employment in the present case meet the test of “good *17cause” under section 1256,1 would affirm the judgment of the trial court granting unemployment benefits.
Bird, C. J., and Grant, J.,* concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied July 14, 1983. Bird, C. J., Broussard, J., and Grodin, J. were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

I am uncertain whether the majority opinion rests upon a newly created rule of law barring benefits to nonmarital partners, or upon an evidentiary presumption. My first impression was that the majority hold that a partner to a heterosexual relationship has “good cause” to leave employment in order to join the other partner only if the two are married or engaged with a *11definite and early date for the wedding. From this point of view, the majority opinion states a rule of law—a mistaken rule, which amends the statute to establish a limitation on unemployment benefits that the Legislature never enacted.
The penultimate paragraph of the majority opinion, however, suggests that the majority intend only to deny nonmarital partners the benefits of an evidentiary presumption. That paragraph states: “Nothing, of course, would prevent claimants in such situations [i.e., a nonmarital relationship] from establishing ‘good cause’ based on compelling circumstances which make the voluntary leaving akin to an involuntary departure. (See Evenson v. Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd., supra, 62 Cal.App.3d at p. 1016.) Thus, for example, where there are children of a non-formalized relationship, and an employee leaves his or her position to be with a nonmarital loved one and their children, good cause might be shown. However, neither the statutes nor our decisions beginning with Marvin require that we extend to partners in nonmarital relationships such as plaintiff, the evidentiary benefits extended to marital partners.” (Ante, p. 10, italics added.)
That paragraph implies that the majority intend only to deny nonmarital partners the benefits of an evidentiary presumption created in favor of parties to present or imminent marriage. The denial of an evidentiary presumption, however, would not bar a party from recovering if he can prove his case without reliance upon the presumption. The majority make no serious attempt to examine the facts of the present case to determine whether plaintiff has proved “good cause” independently from any presumption.

This broad definition of “good cause” does not justify terminating employment for insubstantial or whimsical reasons. Evenson states that the “reasons must be so imperative and compelling as to make the voluntary leaving ‘involuntary’ ” (62 Cal.App.3d 1005, 1016)— which may be an overstatement—but both Evenson (ibid.) and Zorrero (47 Cal.App.3d 434, 439) agree that “[v]oluntary termination must be based op serious and exigent circumstances.”

Section 1256-9 provides in part that: “A claimant voluntarily leaves work with good cause based on domestic circumstances if the claimant’s obligation is of a real, substantial, and compelling nature such as would cause a reasonable person genuinely desirous of retaining employment to take similar action, and the claimant’s reason for leaving work is due to a legal or moral obligation relating to any of the following:
“(1) The health, care, or welfare of the claimant’s family.
“(2) The exercise of parental control over the claimant who is an unemancipated minor.
“(3) The existing or prospective marital status of the claimant.”

Sections 1256-9, 1256-10, and 1256-12 all refer to preservation of “family unity” as a compelling reason justifying termination of employment. “Family” is defined in section 1256-9 in terms of legal relationships, but the commentary to that section states that regardless of legal ties “any person with whom the claimant has had substantially the same relationship of parent-child or grandparent-grandchild” is a member of his family. It does not mention persons to whom the claimant has had substantially the same relationship as that of husband and wife. Yet if we consider an unmarried couple with children, it would seem absurd to insist that it constitutes two separate families (father and children; mother and children) instead of a single family.

The majority state that “[i]t may be of some interest that, indeed, at oral argument more than two years later, we were informed that no marriage had as yet occurred.” (Ante, p. 9.) Interesting it may be, but it is legally irrelevant; if future marriage plans are material at all, they must be judged as of September 1979 when plaintiff left her employment in California.
The opinion also states that “[m]ore significantly, nothing in her notice of termination to her employer or in her request for unemployment compensation benefits indicated that her presence in Washington was necessary because of concrete marriage plans which required ‘on-the-spot’ arrangements.” (Ante, p. 9.) Plaintiff went to Washington to live with her fiance, to share his life, to provide and receive emotional and financial support. This, the majority say, is not “good cause. ” But if she went to Washington to arrange for the catering at the wedding reception, that would be “good cause.”

The closest the majority can come in their search for a statute enacting a distinction between married and unmarried partners’ entitlement to unemployment benefits is the 1975 amendments to Unemployment Insurance Code sections 1030 and 1032, which provide that benefits payable because an employee left work to join a spouse will not be charged to the employer’s account. There are, however, many cases in which an employee who leaves for domestic reasons can obtain benefits that would still be chargeable to the employer. The majority supply one example: a nonmarital partner who leaves to accompany his unmarried partner and their children. (Ante, p. 10.) In fact, the terms of sections 1030 and 1032 do not even include an employee who leaves to join a prospective spouse with imminent marriage in view—another case in which the majority would approve benefits—although arguably the statutes could be construed to include a prospective spouse (and perhaps a de facto spouse) within their scope. In any case, it is clear that there is no legislative policy to deny benefits to a claimant simply because that claim does not fall within the scope of sections 1030 and 1032.

Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.