(a) The Legislature finds and declares that, in some limited entry fisheries, two or more partners may be operating with one of the partners holding the permit to participate in the fishery. The Legislature further finds and declares that undocumented, de facto, family partnerships are a longstanding custom in these fisheries. The Legislature further finds and declares that great hardship results when the permittee partner is no longer able to continue working and leaves the other partner without a permit to continue participating in the fishery.

(b) In any limited entry fishery in which permits are allocated to participants in the fishery, and where the death, incapacity, or retirement of a permittee from that fishery would deprive a working partner of the permittee of the ability to continue to derive a livelihood from that fishery, a permit shall be issued, upon application, to one remaining partner.

(c) A working partner for the purposes of this section shall be a spouse, child (including an adopted child), or sibling of the permittee, whose investment or equity need not be proven by documentation, or a person who can prove an investment or equity in the vessel or gear used in the fishery, and who would otherwise have been eligible for a permit and did not obtain one because he or she was working with or was a partner with the permittee.

(d) The working partner shall also provide substantial evidence of an actual physical working participation aboard the vessel supported by the submission of documents filed with the Franchise Tax Board and supported by trip settlement sheets or similar documents that demonstrate earnings from that participation. “Trip settlement sheet” means a document prepared after a vessel has completed a fishing trip which displays the costs incurred, revenues received, and profits paid out. Investment or equity alone does not establish that the person is a working partner.

(e) Those existing working partners other than the family relationships specified in subdivision (c) may, not later than February 1, 1984, declare and prove the working partnership in a manner satisfactory to the department and request that the department state the fact of the working partnership upon the permit. Thereafter, a nonfamily working partnership shall be declared, proved, and noted upon any limited entry permit at the first issuance of the permit.

(f) This article does not apply to permits to take herring for roe in California.

(Amended by Stats. 1988, Ch. 1505, Sec. 2.)