I was in this same exact situation a few months ago in CA as well. Not to harp on you, but you really REALLY should've brought up the emails during the call. You have a paper trail of your boss contradicting himself. My situation was I didn't get along with the owners wife so they gave me the same song and dance of "it's getting slow, you can work from home." and never heard from them again. Filed for EDD, had to do a phone interview where I was told my old employer said I was fired for being a horrible employee, unfortunately for them when my status switched, they had me sign a letter indicating such but didn't include any cause (probably because they knew at the time 'working from home' was going to be their way of firing me). Told the lady conducting the interview over the phone and she told me to fax it over and was approved the same day. Keep vigilant on the appeals process, and when you talk to EDD the first and only thing you want to bring up and talk about is your boss' paper trail. There's no way he's going to be able to smooth that over.