Is Leaving Work to Obtain Safety "good Cause" to Leave Employment?-providing Unemployment Insurance to Victims of Domestic Violence in Washington State

• Publication year: 1999
• Citation: Vol. 23 No. 02

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEWVolume 23, No. 3WINTER 2000

Is Leaving Work to Obtain Safety "Good Cause" to Leave Employment?-Providing Unemployment Insurance to Victims of Domestic Violence in Washington State

L'Nayim A. Shuman-Austin(fn*)

I. Introduction

In our American society, unemployment insurance fulfills many roles and bears many names. For the social historian, unemployment insurance is a deserved safety net for those who were once members of the working class and now need temporary government assistance to prevent impoverishment.(fn1) An economist would add that unemployment compensation programs are a form of social insurance which help to stabilize the economy by assuring that there is no permanent underclass of needy made up of the temporarily unemployed. However, a business owner may very well believe that unemployment insurance is merely another form of welfare, doled out to those unable to hold a job, and thus an unfair burden on commerce and business owners.

The historical and current primary purpose of unemployment insurance is to provide for those who were once significantly attached to the labor market who become unemployed through no fault of their own.(fn2) In his Address on Unemployment Insurance in New York City on March 6, 1931, President Roosevelt specifically recognized the need of social insurance to reflect the changing nature of human experience:What impresses me most is that insurance as a whole is a constantly changing and a constantly growing force in our individual lives and in our business lives . . . In the various demands which are made by worthy citizens for the protection of business and individuals against new risks, one essential basis for all insurance is often forgotten. I refer to the fundamental principle that insurance must, if it is to survive, be based on human experience.(fn3)

However, as our labor market has changed, our unemployment insurance programs have not.(fn4) Unemployment insurance, as currently implemented in the United States, is a very gender-oriented system.(fn5) Although our workforce is now nearly half female, and the proportion of women which constitute the unemployed has risen as well,(fn6) unemployment insurance fails to provide for the needs of women in the labor force. For example, part-time workers and members of the service industry, both groups predominantly made up of women,(fn7) are often not qualified to receive unemployment insurance benefits due to hour and wage qualification requirements of state unemployment insurance schemes.(fn8) When attachment to the labor force is measured by a minimum number of work weeks required, more than twice as many women than men fail to be eligible for state unemployment insurance (twenty percent of women as compared to eight percent of men).(fn9)

Women face an additional hurdle when they do qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. For individuals who voluntarily leave jobs, unemployment insurance is only available to those who leave for "good cause" reasons.(fn10) Leaving work to take care of domestic or family obligations, a task routinely left to women in two-parent families and single mothers,(fn11) is not considered "good cause" in most states.(fn12) Additionally, while domestic violence predominately affects women,(fn13) individuals who leave work to obtain safety from an abusive partner or stalker are generally not considered as having a good cause reason to leave employment.(fn14) Although a domestic violence or stalking situation is no fault of the victim, and a claimant for unemployment insurance under such dangerous circumstances has become unemployed through no fault of her own, in most states a woman must resort to welfare assistance in order to provide for her family and herself.(fn15)

Some states, such as Arkansas and Pennsylvania, have attempted to fill this gap in unemployment insurance eligibility by resorting to the courts.(fn16) However, a few states have recognized that reliance on the courts and the discretion of individual judges is an inadequate remedy and will not provide a long-term solution for domestic violence advocates and survivors. These states have enacted legislation that provides unemployment insurance benefits in limited circumstances to domestic violence survivors who leave work to obtain safety.(fn17)

This paper focuses on the unemployment compensation statutes, administrative law decisions, and the case law of Washington state and proposes that domestic violence creates involuntary unemployment and should, therefore, be considered a compelling good cause situation for provision of unemployment compensation benefits. Title 50 of the Revised Code of Washington, which provides the structure and provisions of unemployment compensation eligibility, should be liberally construed by agency officials and courts or amended so as to provide unemployment compensation benefits to victims of domestic violence who leave work to obtain safety.

Part II of this paper illustrates how the terms of unemployment compensation eligibility, both in Washington and other states, are defined and how those terms have traditionally been interpreted. I will demonstrate how these terms have a gendered perspective and have historically been utilized to include men and traditional male-oriented jobs within the protection of the unemployment compensation scheme and exclude women and traditional female-oriented jobs from the economic safety net of the unemployment compensation scheme. Although current legislation does not make the distinction between male and female applicants for unemployment insurance, this type of legislation predominantly affects women, thereby correcting short-sighted unemployment insurance laws that prevented women from obtaining benefits in domestic violence situations.

Part III offers statistics of how domestic violence affects the workplace, both nationally and within the states. This part of the paper also examines how the terms of the unemployment scheme, as currently written in Washington and other states, have been interpreted to provide benefits in favor of domestic violence victims. Part IV illustrates how other states, in recognition of the connection between domestic violence and unemployment, have enacted domestic violence legislation to provide unemployment compensation to domestic violence victims. Finally, in Part V, I propose similar legislation for Washington, weigh the pros and cons of such legislation, and discuss the current efforts at such legislation.

II. The Conditions of Unemployment Compensation Eligibility

All unemployment compensation schemes in the United States include both monetary and nonmonetary eligibility requirements.(fn18) These requirements are specifically outlined in the statutory provisions of the unemployment compensation program of each state and are subject to judicial and agency interpretation. Monetary requirements provide that, before unemployment, the claimant must either have worked a certain number of hours or have earned a certain sum of money, or both, during a certain specified period of time called a "base year" or "base period."(fn19) These requirements are not waivable. If an individual has not earned enough money or worked long enough to qualify for unemployment insurance then benefits are summarily denied. All but nine states ignore earnings in the two most recent calendar quarters when defining the term "base year."(fn20) Monetary requirements assure that an individual has significant attachment to the labor force prior to unemployment, thus fulfilling a primary historical purpose of unemployment insurance.(fn21)

In contrast, nonmonetary requirements provide that a claimant must not have been fired for misconduct, or that a claimant who has voluntarily quit a job or refused a job during unemployment must have done so with good cause.(fn22) Historically, nonmonetary requirements were designed to limit payment of benefits only to workers who became or remained unemployed primarily through no fault of their own.(fn23) However, these nonmonetary requirements were altered since unemployment insurance was first implemented in the United States and generally now only include unemployment situations that are no fault of the employer or are work-related.(fn24) For example, until RCW 50.20.050 was amended in 1977, good cause was not limited solely to work-connected factors.(fn25)

Currently, the type of circumstances that are legitimate good cause situations to quit employment are limited and exclude most personal reasons for leaving employment.(fn26) Discussion of what constitutes good cause to leave employment in various states has included sexual harassment in the workplace,(fn27) significant change in working conditions,(fn28) medical disabilities caused or exacerbated by working conditions,(fn29) and child care responsibilities.(fn30) Limiting good cause to nonpersonal reasons for quitting employment places a significant burden on unemployment insurance claimants. Although the claimant may have worked for many years and fulfilled the monetary requirements for eligibility, a life and death domestic violence situation is not statutorily considered good cause, nor have most courts interpreted a domestic violence situation to constitute a good cause reason to quit employment.

A. Ms. B

Ms. B was a resident of Washington when her personal and...