Garcia v. California Employment Stabilization Commission

PEEK, J. This is an original application for a writ of mandate to compel the California Employment Stabilization Commission to grant petitioner the benefits which' she claims she is entitled to under the Unemployment Insurance Act [Stats. 1935, p. 1226, as amended] Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 8780d.

For the past eleven years petitioner has resided in Riverbank, which is located approximately ten miles from the city of Modesto. During the latter part of that time she was seasonally employed from April to November at the Riverbank cannery, which is situated half way between the two [109]communities. Transportation to and from her work was on a share-the-ride basis with neighbors. On May 17, 1943, in accordance with said act and regulations of the commission, she registered for work and filed her claim for unemployment insurance benefits. On November 20th, after the termination of the canning season, she filed a claim for additional benefits and as a result thereof was granted the maximum benefits. Her registration certificate shows that she registered for cannery or bottle labeling work only. A referral to employment was offered her on or about January 10, 1944, as a cannery worker on the day shift in a cannery located in Modesto, at the union scale of pay and under union conditions. She refused to accept the referral, her reason being that she had no means of transportation to the proffered work. Because of such refusal the department disqualified her from receiving benefits for the six weeks’ period beginning January 9, 1944, and ending February 19, 1944, on the ground that she had failed to apply for suitable employment without good cause. She thereupon appealed to a referee who affirmed the original determination. In accordance with the provisions of said act she duly appealed from said decision of the referee to the respondent commission. A hearing was had at which claimant appeared with counsel, and thereafter the board, by a two to one decision, likewise decided against her.

In her petition for writ of mandate she asks that said decision be set aside “excepting only insofar as said decision holds that petitioner had not refused an offer of suitable employment.” Therefore the sole issue presented to this court is whether the board properly determined that petitioner was not available for work within the meaning of section 57(e).

At the outset this court granted petitioner’s request that we take original jurisdiction of her application for the reason that the petition presented a question of first impression involving interpretation of the act; that many hundreds of people in this state were in the same position as petitioner, living in small communities where the labor market was limited and each year were employed in seasonal work in other communities to which transportation was available only during seasonal work; that no work existed in their own communities, and because of the lack of transportation facilities they had no means of obtaining employment in the larger labor markets ; that such persons were of limited means unable to undertake independent litigation and the amounts in any event