Washington’s Employment Security Department wrongly denied unemployment benefits to a Boeing Co. crane operator who took unpaid leave to quarantine during the early days of Covid-19 because his roommate was immunocompromised, a state appeals court ruled.
The ruling Thursday illustrates that workers in Washington state who were sidelined at the outset of the pandemic didn’t need to actively seek replacement work in order to be eligible for unemployment benefits.
That’s typically a requirement under state law, but Gov. Jay Inslee (D) suspended that part of the rule from March 25, 2020, through July 4, 2021, to help slow the spread, ...