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

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