Code Section

4701.  

(a) (1) An employer that is entitled under Section 4654 to notice of the filing of an application or additional claim and who, within 10 days after mailing of the notice, submits to the department any facts within its possession disclosing whether the individual left the most recent employment with the employer voluntarily and without good cause or was discharged from the employment for misconduct connected with their work, or whether the claimant was a student employed on a temporary basis and whose employment began within, and ended with their leaving to return to school at the close of, their vacation period, or whether the claimant left the employer’s employ to accompany their spouse or domestic partner to a place or to join their spouse at a place from which it is impractical to commute to the employment, and to which a transfer of the claimant by the employer is not available, or whether the claimant’s discharge or quit from their most recent employer was the result of an irresistible compulsion to use or consume intoxicants, including alcoholic beverages, or whether the claimant left the employer’s employ to protect their family or themselves from domestic violence abuse, or whether the claimant left the employer’s employ to take a substantially better job, shall be entitled to a ruling as prescribed by this section. The period during which the employer may submit these facts may be extended by the director for good cause.

(2) For purposes of this section, “spouse” includes a person to whom marriage is imminent, and “domestic partner” includes a person to whom a domestic partnership, as described in Section 297 of the Family Code, is imminent.

(b) The department shall consider the facts together with any information in its possession. If the employer is entitled to a determination pursuant to Section 4655, the department shall promptly issue to the employer its ruling as to the cause of the termination of the individual’s most recent employment. The employer may appeal from a ruling or reconsidered ruling to an administrative law judge within 30 days after service of notice of the ruling or reconsidered ruling. The 30-day period may be extended for good cause, which shall include, but not be limited to, mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The director shall be an interested party to an appeal. The department may for good cause reconsider a ruling or reconsidered ruling within either five days after the date an appeal to an administrative law judge is filed or, if no appeal is filed, within 30 days after service of notice of the ruling or reconsidered ruling, except that a ruling or reconsidered ruling that relates to a determination that is reconsidered pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 1332 may also be reconsidered by the department within the time provided for reconsideration of that determination.

(c) For purposes of this section only, if the claimant voluntarily leaves the employer’s employ without notification to the employer of the reasons therefor, and if the employer submits all of the facts within its possession concerning the leaving within the applicable time period referred to in this section, the leaving shall be presumed to be without good cause.

(d) An individual whose employment is terminated under the compulsory retirement provisions of a collective bargaining agreement to which the employer is a party shall not be deemed to have voluntarily left their employment without good cause.

(e) Rulings under this section shall have the effect prescribed by Section 1032.

(f) This section shall become operative on July 1, 2015.