Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/383/225
Timestamp: 2016-10-28 16:07:35
Document Index: 346377281

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 451', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8']

Pasquale J. ACCARDI et al., Petitioners, v. The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Pasquale J. ACCARDI et al., Petitioners, v. The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY.
383 U.S. 225 (86 S.Ct. 768, 15 L.Ed.2d 717)
Decided: Feb. 28, 1966.
[HTML] Richard A. Posner, Asst. to Sol. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for petitioners, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.
Petitioners, who are World War II veterans and former employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad, brought this action claiming that their former employer denied them certain seniority rights guaranteed by § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.
Section 8(b)(B) of that Act provides that upon application by any former employee who has satisfactorily completed his military service, a private employer 'shall restore' such honorably discharged serviceman to his former 'position or to a position of like seniority, status, and pay unless the employer's circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so.' Section 8(c) reemphasizes § 8(b)(B) by providing that any person so restored 'shall be so restored without loss of seniority.'
The language of the 1940 Act clearly manifests a purpose and desire on the part of Congress to provide as nearly as possible that persons called to serve their country in the armed forces should, upon returning to work in civilian life, resume their old employment without any loss because of their service to their country. Section 8(b)(B) of the statute requires that private employers reinstate their former employees who are honorably discharged veterans 'to (their former) position or to a position of like seniority, status, and pay,' and § 8(c) provides that such a person 'shall be so restored without loss of seniority.' This means that for the purpose of determining seniority the returning veteran is to be treated as though he has been continuously employed during the period spent in the armed forces. Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 284285, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 11101111, 90 L.Ed. 1230. The continuing purpose of Congress in this matter was again shown in the Universal Military Training and Service Act, 62 Stat. 604, as amended, 50 U.S.C. App. § 451 et seq. (1964 ed.). Section 9(c)(2) of that Act provides:
The term 'seniority' is nowhere defined in the Act, but it derives its content from private employment practices and agreements. This does not mean, however, that employers and unions are empowered by the use of transparent labels and definitions to deprive a veteran of substantial rights guaranteed by the Act. As we said in Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., supra, '(N)o practice of employers or agreements between employers and unions can cut down the service adjustment benefits which Congress has secured the veteran under the Act.' At 285, 66 S.Ct. at 1111. The term 'seniority' is not to be limited by a narrow, technical definition but must be given a meaning that is consonant with the intention of Congress as expressed in the 1940 Act. That intention was to preserve for the returning veterans the rights and benefits which would have automatically accrued to them had they remained in private employment rather than responding to the call of their country. In this case there can be no doubt that the amounts of the severance payments were based primarily on the employees' length of service with the railroad. The railroad contends, however, that the allowances were not based on seniority, but on the actual total service rendered by the employee. This is hardly consistent with the bizarre results possible under the definition of 'compensated service.' As the Government
points out, it is possible under the agreement for an employee to receive credit for a whole year of 'compensated service' by working a mere seven days. There would be no distinction whatever between the man who worked one day a month for seven months and the man who worked 365 days in a year. The use of the label 'compensated service' cannot obscure the fact that the real nature of these payments was compensation for loss of jobs. And the cost to an employee of losing his job is not measured by how much work he did in the pastno matter how calculatedbut by the rights and benefits he forfeits by giving up his job. Among employees who worked at the same jobs in the same craft and class the number and value of the rights and benefits increase in proportion to the amount of seniority, and it is only natural that those with the most seniority should receive the highest allowances since they were giving up more rights and benefits than those with less seniority. The requirements of the 1940 Act are not satisfied by giving returning veterans seniority in some general abstract sense and then denying them the perquisites and benefits that flow from it. We think it clear that the amount of these allowances is just as much a perquisite of seniority as the more traditional benefits such as work preference and order of lay-off and recall. We hold that the failure to credit petitioners' 'compensated service' time with the period spent in the armed services does not accord petitioners the right to be reinstated 'without loss of seniority' guaranteed by §§ 8(b)(B) and (c).
What we have said makes it unnecessary to discuss in detail the Court of Appeals' holding that these allowances did not come within the concepts of 'seniority, status, and pay' and thus were governed not by § 8(b)(B) and the part of § 8(c) relating to seniority but rather by the clause in § 8(c) stating that returning veterans 'shall be entitled to participate in insurance or other benefits offered by the employer pursuant to established rules and practices relating to employees on furlough or leave of absence in effect with the employer at the time such person was inducted into such forces * * *.' The Government contends that the 'other benefits' clause of § 8(c) was added to the bill 'for the express purpose of entitling employees to receive, while in service, such benefits as their employers accorded employees on leave of absence.' The legislative history referred to in the Government's brief persuasively supports such a purpose.
This argument of the Governmentthat the 'insurance or other benefits' clause was put in to provide these company benefits for the serviceman at the time he was in the armed forcesalso finds some support in the fact that § 8(c) provides that the serviceman would be entitled to these benefits only if they were 'in effect with the employer at the time such person was inducted into such forces * * *.' Without attempting in this case to determine the exact scope of this provision of § 8(c) it is enough to say that we consider that it was intended to add certain protections to the veteran and not to take away those which are granted him by § 8(b)(B) and the other clauses of § 8(c).