Darkenwald v. State Emp't Sec. Dep't

183 Wash.2d 237

350 P.3d 647

Linda DARKENWALD, Petitioner

v.STATE of Washington EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DEPARTMENT, Respondent.

No. 90544–4.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

May 21, 2015.

Edward Earl Younglove III, Younglove & Coker, PLLC, Olympia, WA, for Petitioner.

Eric A. Sonju, Washington State Office of the Attorney, Dept. of Lic & Admin. Law A.G. Office, Attorney at Law, Jay Douglas Geck, Office of the Attorney General, Olympia, WA, Eric Daniel Peterson, Attorney at Law, Seattle, WA, for Respondent.

Michele Besso, Northwest Justice Project, David Jd Morales, Attorney at Law, Yakima, WA, Eric Dunn, Deborah Perluss, Northwest Justice Project, Seattle, WA, amicus counsel for Northwest Justice Project.

Janet S. Chung, Legal Voice, Seattle, WA, amicus counsel for Legal Voice.

Jeffrey Lowell Needle, Maynard Building, Seattle, WA, amicus counsel for Washington Employment Lawyers Association.

Robert Andrew Battles, Association of Washington Business, Olympia, WA, amicus counsel for Washington Business.

Opinion

WIGGINS, J.

¶ 1 Linda Darkenwald appeals from the Washington Employment Security Department's (Department) denial of her claim for unemployment benefits. We must decide whether a desire to work only part time constitutes a good cause reason for leaving work, thus permitting an individual who leaves work for that reason to collect unemployment benefits. Darkenwald claims that her employer's request that she increase her working hours to three days per week gave her good cause to leave work because she wanted to continue working only two days a week. She relies on a statute that does not apply to her and would not give her good cause to leave work even if it were applicable. The Employment Security Act (Act), Title 50 RCW, lists good-cause reasons for voluntarily leaving work and states that this list is exclusive. A desire to perform only part-time work is not a good cause under the Act, and the part-time worker provisions do not apply.¹ For these reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual Background

¶ 2 Darkenwald worked as a dental hygienist in the office of Dr. Gordon Yamaguchi from 1985 to 2010. Initially, Darkenwald worked one day a week, but she increased this to two days a week and then four days a week. In 1998, she suffered a neck and back injury. Darkenwald received worker's compensation benefits after the Department of Labor and Industries found that she had a permanent impairment. Despite her injury, Darkenwald continued to work three to four days a week until 2006. From that point on, Darkenwald worked only on Mondays and Wednesdays, for a total of 14 to 17 hours per week. Dr. Yamaguchi asserts that Darkenwald reduced her hours in order to spend more time with her family.

¶ 3 In 2010, Dr. Yamaguchi added another dentist to his practice. Dr. Yamaguchi met with Darkenwald and asked her to return to working three days a week; specifically, he asked her to work Fridays in addition to Mondays and Wednesdays. In the alternative, he offered her a position as an on-call or substitute hygienist.² Darkenwald found neither of these alternatives acceptable and thus interpreted Dr. Yamaguchi's request as a termination of her employment, telling him, “I hear you saying that I am fired.” During this meeting, Darkenwald never said that her disability prevented her from working more than two days per week. Afterward, Darkenwald believed she had been fired, while Dr. Yamaguchi believed that she had quit. Darkenwald worked her last day at Dr. Yamaguchi's office a few days after this meeting, declining his offer of continued employment for three more weeks.

II. Procedural History

¶ 4 Eight days after her last day at Dr. Yamaguchi's office, Darkenwald filed a claim for unemployment benefits with the Department, asserting that she had been fired. Her initial application for benefits listed “wanted me to work more days” as the reason she was fired. The application did not mention her disability. After reviewing Dr. Yamaguchi's response, the Department denied Darkenwald's claim, stating that she had not been discharged but rather had “quit for personal reasons” and had “not established good cause” for quitting.

¶ 5 Darkenwald appealed the denial of her claim to an administrative law judge (ALJ) with the Department. The ALJ concluded that Darkenwald voluntarily quit her job as a part-time dental hygienist and failed to establish good cause for leaving work. In his decision, the ALJ wrote that Darkenwald had quit and had not been discharged and concluded that while she “had good personal reasons for quitting as she did not want to work more than two days a week,” she “has not established that her medical condition was the reason she was not able to work on Fridays.” The Department's commissioner adopted the ALJ's findings of fact and conclusions of law and upheld the ALJ's decision on substantially the same grounds.

¶ 6 Darkenwald appealed to the Thurston County Superior Court, which reversed the commissioner's decision and directed the Department to grant Darkenwald unemployment benefits. The Superior Court rejected the commissioner's findings that Darkenwald had voluntarily quit and “that Darkenwald refused or was not interested in working on Fridays.” Instead, the Superior Court concluded that Darkenwald's disability prevented her from working more than two days a week and that Dr. Yamaguchi's request for Darkenwald to work three days a week made him “the moving or initiating party leading to Darkenwald's termination.”

¶ 7 The Court of Appeals reversed the Superior Court and reinstated the commissioner's denial of benefits. Darkenwald v. Emp't Sec. Dep't, 182 Wash.App. 157, 179, 328 P.3d 977 (2014). The Court of Appeals held that substantial evidence supported the commissioner's findings that Darkenwald had voluntarily quit, that Darkenwald's disability was not the primary reason she quit, and that her disability did not make it necessary for her to quit. Id. at 172–75, 328 P.3d 977. The appellate court held that the protections that the Act accords to unemployed part-time workers did not establish good cause for Darkenwald to quit, reasoning that a contrary holding would be contrary to the legislative intent that the list of “good causes” for quitting that the Act is exclusive. Id. at 177–79, 328 P.3d 977.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 8 We sit in the same position as the Superior Court and thus do not give deference to the rulings of the Superior Court or Court of Appeals. Verizon Nw., Inc. v. Emp't Sec. Dep't, 164 Wash.2d 909, 915, 194 P.3d 255 (2008). Under the Washington Administrative Procedure Act, chapter 34.05 RCW, we review the decision of the commissioner rather than the underlying decision of the ALJ, except to the extent that the commissioner adopts the ALJ's findings. Verizon Nw., 164 Wash.2d at 915, 194 P.3d 255.

¶ 9 As the party challenging the commissioner's decision, Darkenwald bears the burden of demonstrating the invalidity of the Department's action. RCW 34.05.570(1)(a). Our task is to determine whether the Department erroneously interpreted or applied the law, whether its decision is supported by substantial evidence, and whether the decision is arbitrary and capricious. RCW 34.05.570(3)(d), (e), (i). We review administrative findings of fact for substantial evidence, and unchallenged findings are treated as verities on appeal. Smith v. Emp't Sec. Dep't, 155 Wash.App. 24, 32–33, 226 P.3d 263 (2010). We review issues of law de novo. Quadrant Corp. v. Growth Mgmt. Hr'gs Bd., 154 Wash.2d 224, 233, 110 P.3d 1132 (2005).

¶ 10 On matters of statutory interpretation, our “fundamental objective is to ascertain and carry out the Legislature's intent.” Dep't of Ecology v. Campbell & Gwinn, LLC, 146 Wash.2d 1, 9, 43 P.3d 4 (2002). “[I]f the statute's meaning is plain on its face, then the court must give effect to that plain meaning as an expression of legislative intent.” Id. at 9–10, 43 P.3d 4. When determining a statute's plain meaning, we consider “the ordinary meaning of words, basic rules of grammar, and the statutory context to conclude what the legislature has provided for in the statute and related statutes.” In re Forfeiture of One 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle, 166 Wash.2d 834, 838–39, 215 P.3d 166 (2009). We consider other matters, including legislative history, if “the statute remains susceptible to more than one reasonable meaning” after completing this plain-meaning analysis. Campbell & Gwinn, 146 Wash.2d at 12, 43 P.3d 4.

ANALYSIS

¶ 11 RCW 50.20.050 disqualifies a worker from receiving unemployment benefits if the worker “left work voluntarily without good cause.” RCW 50.20.050(2)(a). The statute further provides that “[g]ood cause reasons to leave work are limited to reasons listed in (b) of this subsection.” Id. Consequently, a worker who voluntarily leaves work must satisfy the requirements of 1 of the 11 causes enumerated in RCW 50.20.050(2)(b) in order to demonstrate good cause.

¶ 12 The ALJ and the commissioner determined that Darkenwald quit—i.e., that she voluntarily left work—rather than being discharged. Darkenwald failed to meaningfully challenge this conclusion in her petition for review and instead argued that she is entitled to benefits regardless of whether the termination of her employment is characterized as a “quit” or a discharge.³ She never explicitly concedes that she voluntarily left work, nor does she explicitly challenge that component of the Court of Appeals' holding. Because Darkenwald failed to meaningfully challenge this holding in her petition for review, we accept the holding of the Court of Appeals and affirm the commissioner's determination that Darkenwald quit work voluntarily and that she was not discharged by her employer.⁴

¶ 13 Because Darkenwald left work voluntarily, RCW 50.20.050(2)(a) disqualifies her from receiving benefits unless she satisfies one of that statute's enumerated “[g]ood cause reasons” for leaving work. Darkenwald asserts that both her disability and her desire to...