BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations
Mark DeSaulnier, Chair
Date of Hearing: June 23, 2010 2009-2010 Regular
Session
Consultant: Gideon L. Baum Fiscal:Yes
Urgency: No
Bill No: AB 2055
Author: De La Torre
Version: As Amended April 13, 2010
SUBJECT
Unemployment insurance: benefits: eligibility: reserve accounts:
domestic partners.
KEY ISSUE
Should the Legislature permit EDD to award Unemployment
Insurance benefits to include a person for whom a registered
domestic partnership is imminent and must move due to a
partner's relocation?
PURPOSE
To ensure that imminent domestic partnerships have the same
ability to seek unemployment insurance benefits due to "good
cause" relocation as married couples, registered domestic
partners, and imminent married couples.
ANALYSIS
Existing law:
a) Disqualifies a person for unemployment insurance (UI)
benefits if the Director of the Employment Development
(EDD) finds that he or she left his or her most recent work
voluntarily without good cause or that he or she has been
discharged for misconduct.
b) Provides that a person may be deemed to have left his or
her most recent work with good cause if he or she leaves
employment to accompany his or her spouse or domestic
partner to a place from which it is impractical to commute
to the employment.
c) Permits an employer who is entitled to receive notice
that a person has filed a claim of regular UI benefits or
extended UI benefits to submit to EDD facts disclosing that
the claimant left employment voluntarily or left due to
specified circumstances. One of the circumstances is that
the claimant left employment to accompany his or her spouse
or domestic partner to join him at a place from which it is
impractical to commute to the employment, to which a
transfer of the claimant by the employer is not available.
d) Provides that if a UI claimant left their employment
voluntarily or under specified circumstances, then the
benefits paid to the claimant shall not be charged to the
account of the employer. One of these circumstances is
that the claimant left the employer's employ to accompany
his or her spouse or domestic partner to join him at place
from which it is impractical to commute.
e) Defines "spouse" for the above purposes to include a
person to whom marriage is imminent.
This Bill:
1) Defines "domestic partner" to include a person to whom a
registered domestic partnership is imminent;
2) Allows a person to whom a domestic partnership is
imminent to be eligible to receive UI benefits if he or she
accompanies their intended domestic partner to a place from
which it is impractical to commute.
3) Permits an employer to submit facts to EDD disclosing
that the UI claimant left employment to accompany his or
her imminent domestic partner to join him or her at a place
from which it is impractical to commute.
4) Provides that an employer's account will not be charged
for the UI benefits received by a former employee if the UI
claimant left employment to accompany his or her imminent
Hearing Date: June 23, 2010 AB 2055
Consultant: Gideon L. Baum Page 2
Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations
domestic partner to join him or her at place from which it
is impractical to commute.
COMMENTS
1. Need for this bill?
According to the bill sponsor, Equality California, existing
law provides that persons who are unemployed through no fault
of their own can receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.
UI benefits are available to an employee when he or she
leaves his or her job for good cause, including when he or she
leaves the area to accompany their spouse or registered
domestic partner. As defined in existing law, the term
"spouse" includes individuals/couples where marriage is
imminent. Therefore, soon-to-be married couples can also
receive UI benefits. However, the law does not cover
imminent domestic partners.
2. Case Law:
In 1988, the state Supreme Court ruled in Altaville Drug
Stores v. Employment Development Department (1988) 44 Cal.3d
231 that an employer's reserve account may be relieved of
charges when a person who is about to be married leaves work
to join his or her fianc?/fianc?e, the couple is later
married, the fianc?/fianc?e lives in a place from which it is
impractical for the claimant to commute to the former
employment, the new place is one to which the claimant could
not be transferred, and the spouse or imminent spouse has
secured employment at the new location.
The state Supreme Court also addressed the relationship of
Section 1032 (employer accounts for purposes of UI payments)
to Section 1256 (UI eligibility) of the Unemployment Insurance
Code and held that . . . "the purpose of the 1979 amendment to
Section 1032 was to remedy the unfair situation imposed on an
employer of a '"domestic quit"' whose employee left work with
good cause to follow his or her spouse. The situation is
similarly unfair when an employee leaves with good cause to
Hearing Date: June 23, 2010 AB 2055
Consultant: Gideon L. Baum Page 3
Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations
follow an '"imminent spouse."'
This decision followed up on the 1979 decision Borer v.
Department of Employment Development (1976) 59 Cal.App.3d 250,
which found that the "domestic quit" rule, which provided that
no unemployment benefits would be payable to an employee who
voluntarily resigned from his or her employment to follow his
or her spouse to another location which made a commute to the
prior place of employment impractical, unconstitutionally
discriminated against women.
3. Proponent Arguments :
Proponents argue that AB 2055 will preserve the family unit by
providing the same UI benefits to imminent domestic partners
that married couples, registered domestic partners, and
soon-to-be married couples currently receive. By guaranteeing
this right to imminent domestic partners, this bill will bring
parity to the law, family unity will be preserved, and all
committed relationships will be given equal opportunity to
unemployment benefits. Proponents also note that in
California's current economic crisis, with unemployment at
12.6%, people are searching for jobs in every corner of the
state and are more willing than ever to move for work.
4. Opponent Arguments :
None on file.
5. Prior Legislation :
AB 25 (Migden) Chapter 893, Statutes of 2001 authorizes the
establishment of registered domestic partnerships and provides
that a domestic partner is equal to a spouse for purposes of
UI eligibility and may leave his or her employment if he or
she leaves to accompany or join the domestic partner to a
place from which it is impractical to commute. AB 25 also
allows an individual employer's account to not be charged when
an employee leaves due to this reason.
Hearing Date: June 23, 2010 AB 2055
Consultant: Gideon L. Baum Page 4
Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations
AB 3602 (Waters), Chapter 781, Statutes of 1988, provides that
an individual may be deemed to have left his or her most
recent work with good cause if he or she leaves to accompany
or join his or her spouse or "imminent" spouse to a place
from which it is impractical to commute to the employment.
SUPPORT
American Civil Liberties Union
California Communities United Institute
California Labor Federation
California Teachers Association
City of West Hollywood
Consumer Attorneys of California
Equality California
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians
OPPOSITION
None on file.
* * *
Hearing Date: June 23, 2010 AB 2055
Consultant: Gideon L. Baum Page 5
Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations