West Virginia Code
Article 1A. Definitions
§21A-1A-17. Exclusions From Employment

The term "employment" does not include:
(1) Service performed in the employ of the United States or any instrumentality of the United States exempt under the Constitution of the United States from the payments imposed by this law, except that to the extent that the Congress of the United States permits states to require any instrumentalities of the United States to make payments into an unemployment fund under a state unemployment compensation law, all of the provisions of this law are applicable to the instrumentalities and to service performed for the instrumentalities in the same manner, to the same extent, and on the same terms as to all other employers, employing units, individuals, and services: Provided, That if this state is not certified for any year by the Secretary of Labor under 26 U.S.C. 3404, subsection (c), the payments required of the instrumentalities with respect to the year shall be refunded by the commissioner from the fund in the same manner and within the same period as is provided in 21A-5-19 of this code with respect to payments erroneously collected;
(2) Service performed with respect to which unemployment compensation is payable under the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and service with respect to which unemployment benefits are payable under an unemployment compensation system for maritime employees established by an Act of Congress. The commissioner may enter into agreements with the proper agency established under an Act of Congress to provide reciprocal treatment to individuals who, after acquiring potential rights to unemployment compensation under an Act of Congress or who have, after acquiring potential rights to unemployment compensation under an Act of Congress, acquired rights to benefit under this chapter. Such agreement shall become effective 10 days after the publications which shall comply with the general rules of the department;
(3) Service performed by an individual in agricultural labor, except as provided in 21A-1A-16(12) of this code, the definition of "employment". For purposes of this subdivision, the term "agricultural labor" includes all services performed:
(A) On a farm, in the employ of any person, in connection with cultivating the soil, or in connection with raising or harvesting any agricultural or horticultural commodity, including the raising, shearing, feeding, caring for, training, and management of livestock, bees, poultry, and fur-bearing animals and wildlife;
(B) In the employ of the owner or tenant or other operator of a farm, in connection with the operation, management, conservation, improvement, or maintenance of the farm and its tools and equipment, or in salvaging timber or clearing land of brush and other debris left by a hurricane, if the major part of the service is performed on a farm;
(C) In connection with the production or harvesting of any commodity defined as an agricultural commodity in 15(g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended, as codified in 12 U.S.C. 1141j, subsection (g), or in connection with the ginning of cotton, or in connection with the operation or maintenance of ditches, canals, reservoirs, or waterways, not owned or operated for profit, used exclusively for supplying and storing water for farming purposes;
(D) (i) In the employ of the operator of a farm in handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging, processing, freezing, grading, storing, or delivering to storage or to market or to a carrier for transportation to market, in its unmanufactured state, any agricultural or horticultural commodity; but only if the operator produced more than one half of the commodity with respect to which the service is performed; or (ii) in the employ of a group of operators of farms (or a cooperative organization of which the operators are members) in the performance of service described in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph, but only if the operators produced more than one half of the commodity with respect to which the service is performed; but the provisions of subparagraphs (i) and (ii) of this paragraph are not applicable with respect to service performed in connection with commercial canning or commercial freezing or in connection with any agricultural or horticultural commodity after its delivery to a terminal market for distribution for consumption;
(E) On a farm operated for profit if the service is not in the course of the employers trade or business or is domestic service in a private home of the employer. As used in this subdivision, the term "farm" includes stock, dairy, poultry, fruit, fur-bearing animals, truck farms, plantations, ranches, greenhouses, ranges, and nurseries, or other similar land areas or structures used primarily for the raising of any agricultural or horticultural commodities;
(4) Domestic service in a private home except as provided in 21A-1A-16(13) of this code, the definition of "employment";
(5) Service performed by an individual in the employ of his or her son, daughter, or spouse;
(6) Service performed by a child under the age of 18 years in the employ of his or her father or mother;
(7) Service as an officer or member of a crew of an American vessel, performed on or in connection with the vessel, if the operating office, from which the operations of the vessel operating on navigable waters within or without the United States are ordinarily and regularly supervised, managed, directed, and controlled, is without this state;
(8) Service performed by agents of mutual fund broker-dealers or insurance companies, exclusive of industrial insurance agents, or by agents of investment companies, who are compensated wholly on a commission basis;
(9) Service performed: (A) In the employ of a church or convention or association of churches, or an organization which is operated primarily for religious purposes and which is operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches; or (B) by a duly ordained, commissioned, or licensed minister of a church in the exercise of his or her ministry or by a member of a religious order in the exercise of duties required by the order; or (C) by an individual receiving rehabilitation or remunerative work in a facility conducted for the purpose of carrying out a program of either: (i) Rehabilitation for individuals whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury; or (ii) providing remunerative work for individuals who because of their impaired physical or mental capacity cannot be readily absorbed in the competitive labor market: Provided, That this exemption does not apply to services performed by individuals if they are not receiving rehabilitation or remunerative work on account of their impaired capacity; or (D) as part of an unemployment work-relief or work-training program assisted or financed, in whole or in part, by any federal agency or an agency of a state or political subdivision thereof, by an individual receiving the work relief or work training; or (E) by an inmate of a custodial or penal institution;
(10) Service performed in the employ of a school, college, or university, if the service is performed: (A) By a student who is enrolled and is regularly attending classes at the school, college, or university; or (B) by the spouse of a student, if the spouse is advised, at the time the spouse commences to perform the service, that: (i) The employment of the spouse to perform the service is provided under a program to provide financial assistance to the student by the school, college, or university; and (ii) the employment will not be covered by any program of unemployment insurance;
(11) Service performed by an individual who is enrolled at a nonprofit or public educational institution which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly organized body of students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are carried on as a student in a full-time program, taken for credit at the institution, which combines academic instruction with work experience, if the service is an integral part of the program and the institution has so certified to the employer, except that this subdivision does not apply to service performed in a program established for or on behalf of an employer or group of employers;
(12) Service performed in the employ of a hospital, if the service is performed by a patient of the hospital, as defined in this article;
(13) Service in the employ of a governmental entity referred to in 21A-1A-16(9) of this code, the definition of "employment", if the service is performed by an individual in the exercise of duties: (A) As an elected official; (B) as a member of a legislative body, or a member of the judiciary, of a state or political subdivision; (C) as a member of the state National Guard or air National Guard, except as provided in 21A-1A-28 of this code; (D) as an employee serving on a temporary basis in case of fire, storm, snow, earthquake, flood, or similar emergency; (E) in a position which, under or pursuant to the laws of this state, is designated as: (i) A major nontenured policymaking or advisory position; or (ii) a policymaking or advisory position the performance of the duties of which ordinarily does not require more than eight hours per week; or (F) as any election official appointed to serve during any municipal, county, or state election, if the amount of remuneration received by the individual during the calendar year for services as an election official is less than $1,000;
(14) Service performed by a bona fide partner of a partnership for the partnership; and
(15) Service performed by a person for his or her own sole proprietorship.
Notwithstanding the foregoing exclusions from the definition of "employment", services, except agricultural labor and domestic service in a private home, are in employment if with respect to the services a tax is required to be paid under any federal law imposing a tax against which credit may be taken for contributions required to be paid into a State Unemployment Compensation Fund, or which as a condition for full tax credit against the tax imposed by the federal Unemployment Tax Act are required to be covered under this chapter.

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