Perales v. Department of Human Resources Dev.

• Decision Date: 14 May 1973
• Citation: 108 Cal.Rptr. 167,32 Cal.App.3d 332
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Hector G. PERALES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT et al., Defendants and Respondents. 5 Civ. 1630.

Page 167

108 Cal.Rptr. 167

32 Cal.App.3d 332

Hector G. PERALES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT et al., Defendants and Respondents.

5 Civ. 1630.

Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

May 14, 1973.

Hearing Denied July 25, 1973.

[32 Cal.App.3d 334] Gene Livingston, Jr. and Jonathan Steiner, Modesto, for plaintiff and appellant.

Levy & Van Bourg, Abe F. Levy, Jack Levine and Matthew B. F. Biren, Los Angeles, for International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), as amicus curiae on behalf of appellant.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., and Edmund E. White, and Melvin R. Segal, Deputy Attys. Gen., Sacramento, for defendants and respondents Director of Human Resources Development, California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Members thereof.

Gary Stetzel, Fullerton, for defendant and respondent Hunts-Wesson Foods, Inc.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Willard Z. Carr, Jr., Los Angeles, and Richard Chernick, Beverly Hills, for Merchants and Manufacturers Assn., as amicus curiae on behalf of respondents.

OPINION

FRANSON, Associate Justice.

Appellant petitioned the superior court for a writ of mandate, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5, directing respondents to grant his claim for unemployment insurance benefits. He appeals from a judgment denying the writ.

During the 1969 canning season appellant was employed by Hunts- Wesson Foods, Inc., where he earned sufficient wages to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. After the canning season ended he went to work pruning peach trees for a farmer near Waterford, California. Appellant pruned trees for about nine days; he was paid 75 cents a tree and earned from $20 to $35 per day. On January 7, 1970, he quit his pruning job to attend English classes although there were three days of pruning work left. ¹

While attending school, appellant filed a claim for unemployment compensation benefits. His claim was denied by the Department of Human Resources Development on the ground, among others, that he had left his last work voluntarily and without good cause. ² Appellant appealed to a referee, who affirmed the department's decision, and than appealed to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which affirmed the referee's decision. He sought mandamus in the superior court; after independently reviewing the administrative record the court concluded that the weight of the evidence supported the appeals board decision.

Appellant contends that he left his last employment, pruning peach trees, with good cause within the meaning of Unemployment Insurance Code ³ section 1256 in that he quit to attend school so that he could improve his chances for future employment. He also contends that the department's denial of unemployment compensation benefits violates the provisions of section 1256 because the statutory presumption that an individual has not voluntarily left his work without good cause may be Rebutted only by the employer giving written notice to the director within five days after termination of service, setting forth facts sufficient to overcome the presumption. We hold both contentions to be without merit.

Section 100 defines the policy of the Unemployment Insurance law, in part, as follows:

'. . . for a system of unemployment insurance providing benefits for persons Unemployed through no fault of their own, and to reduce Involuntary unemployment . . . to a minimum.' (Emphasis added.)

The basic purpose of the law is to insure a diligent worker against the vicissitudes of enforced unemployment not voluntarily created without good cause. (Unemp.Ins.Code §§ 100, 1256; California Portland Cement Co. v. California Unemp. Ins. Appeals Board, 178 Cal.App.2d 263, 269--270, 3 Cal.Rptr. 37.)

Whether an employee has quit his employment without good cause is a question of law. (California Portland Cement Co. v. California Unemp. Ins. Appeals Board, Supra, at p. 274, 3 Cal.Rptr. 37.) Normally, 'good cause' has some relationship to the job. For example, in Bunny's Waffle Shop v. California Employment Com., 24 Cal.2d 735, 151 P.2d 224, it was held that the employee had good cause to quit because the employer cut the employee's wages by 25 percent.

Under compelling circumstances quitting for personal reasons unrelated to the employment may also bring one within the ambit of good cause. In California Portland Cement Co. v. California Unemp. Ins. Appeals Board, Supra, 178 Cal.App.2d 263, 3 Cal.Rptr. 37, it was held that leaving a job to take another job was Not without good cause within the meaning or Unemployment Insurance Code section 1032 which provides that an employer's unemployment insurance account is not to be charged if the claimant left his employ 'voluntarily and without good cause,' even though the employer introduced evidence which supported an inference that it was not responsible for the employee's quitting. The reviewing court, in upholding the administrative decision, noted that the employer had not met its burden of proving that the employee did not have a compelling reason for quitting. The Court stated that the Legislature intended that good cause for leaving a job may include causes personal to the claimant, citing section 1264. (California Portland Cement Co. v. California Unemp. Ins. Appeals Board, 178 Cal.App.2d at p. 272, 3 Cal.Rptr. 37.)

Section 1264 provides that an employee who quits his or her employment to be married or to accompany his or her spouse to a place from which it is impractical to commute to such employment, or whose marital or domestic duties cause a spouse to resign from his or her employment, shall not be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits for the duration of the ensuing period of unemployment unless the employee at the time of leaving and at the time of filing his claim for benefits 'is the sole or major support of his or her family.' By this statute the Legislature in effect has declared that quitting a job for the personal reasons therein enumerated may constitute good cause unless the income from the job is secondary or incidental to the support of the family. Where the employee who quits to get married or to join a spouse or to perform a necessary marital or domestic duty is the sole or major support of his or her family, the quitting is apparently deemed by the Legislature to be so necessitous as to be in fact 'involuntary.'

Turning to the facts of the case at bench, we cannot say that quitting a job to attend school, no matter how personally commendable the step may be, is an imperative and compelling reason of such magnitude as to render the claimant eligible for unemployment benefits, at least in the absence of explicit legislative authority. If this were good cause within the meaning of section 1256, untold numbers of persons could quit their jobs to attend school while receiving unemployment compensation benefits. However great may be society's interest in furthering a working man's education, we find nothing in the Unemployment Insurance Law to sanction this objective. Although we must afford a liberal construction to this statute so as to effect all the relief that the Legislature intended to grant (California Employment Com. v. Butte County Rice Growers Association, 25 Cal.2d 624, 630, 154 P.2d 892) we cannot exceed the limits of the statutory intent. (California Employment Com. v. Kovacevich, 27 Cal.2d 546, 549--550, 165 P.2d 917.) The unemployment insurance system cannot be used to subsidize an employee's education.

We conclude that appellant quit his pruning job without good cause.

We turn now to the question of the legal effect of the presumption created by section 1256. Section 1256 provides, in part:

'An individual is presumed to have been discharged for reasons other than misconduct in connection with his work and not to have voluntarily left his work without good cause unless his employer has given written notice to the contrary to the director within five days after the termination of service, setting forth facts sufficient to overcome the presumption. If the employer files such notice, the question shall immediately be determined in the same manner as benefit claims.'

Appellant contends that the statute provides the sole method for rebutting the presumption and unless that method is followed the presumption is determinative of the question of discharge of quitting for good cause. He asserts that whether an employee voluntarily quits without good cause or is discharged for misconduct is not an issue to be determined by the department unless the employer has, within five days after the termination of the employment, filed written notice alleging facts that the employee either quit voluntarily without good cause or was discharged for misconduct.

What appellant indeed is saying is that the section 1256 presumption is conclusive unless the employer files the prescribed notice within five days.

It is persuasive that the statute itself does not declare the presumption conclusive. Evidence Code section 620 provides:

'The presumptions established by this article, and all other presumptions Declared by law to be conclusive, are conclusive presumptions.' (Emphasis added.) ⁴

Evidence Code section 601 provides in substance that all presumptions that are not conclusive are rebuttable.

A conclusive presumption is actually a substantive rather than an evidentiary rule of law. (Kusior v. Silver, 54 Cal.2d 603, 619, 7 Cal.Rptr. 129, 354 P.2d 657.) We cannot arbitrarily declare a rule of substantive law unsupported by sound policy or reason. Examining section 1256, we find no overriding public interest to be served by indisputably presuming from the failure of an employer to file the five-day pre-claim notice of termination that the claimant did not quit his job without good cause or was discharged for reasons other than misconduct. To the contrary, it is the policy of the state to...