Opinion ID: 12484
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hall v. Chicago & E. Ill. R.R. and White v. Frank

Text: The district court in Hall, noting that one of the purposes of 9 the limitation period might have been to deny re-employment rights to persons who entered the Armed Forces for the purpose of making Military Service a career or to those who deliberately elect not to be separated, nevertheless determined that Congress's intention was not to penalize the patriotic employee, but rather, to relieve the employer of inconvenience and uncertainty. 240 F.Supp. at 800. The Northern District of Illinois thus viewed the limitations period as a concession to employers who were concerned not with the prospect of long-term veterans with reemployment rights, but rather with reemployment rights of indefinite duration.3 Accordingly, the Hall court viewed the limitation period as personal to the employer running only against the employer as to whom reemployment rights are asserted. Addressing (hypothetically) the precise situation at issue in this case, the court observed the manifest injustice that would result from deeming the limitation period to include pre-employment military service: For example, a veteran who ... graduated from school, enlisted in the Armed Forces for four years, was discharged from the Armed Forces, then found his first job, and 3 As observed by Sykes, when veterans' reemployment rights were first conferred by statute in 1940, there was no prescribed limitation period. In 1948 a three-year limitation period was imposed, Selective Service Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 604, 614-18, followed by the current, four-year period in 1951, Act of June 19, 1951, 65 Stat. 75, 86-87. See also Christner v. Poudre Valley Coop. Ass'n, 235 F.2d 946, 949 (10th Cir.1956) (The 1951 amendment extended those [reemployment] rights to persons who served for not more than four years.); Smith v. Missouri Pac. Trans. Co., 208 F.Supp. 767, 770 (E.D.Ark.1961) (The older [1940] statute made no reference to the time spent in military service, whether on a voluntary or involuntary basis, as bearing on reemployment rights of a returning serviceman. The 1948 Act and subsequent Acts amendatory thereof were not silent in that regard.), aff'd, 313 F.2d 676 (8th Cir.1963). 10 subsequently re-enlisted (or was recalled to active duty) ... would never enjoy the re-employment benefits conferred by the Act. Surely Congress would not have intended to deny these individuals their reasonable expectation to re-employment following their satisfactory completion of military service by turning the limitation period in the Act into a weapon for denying such rights. Id. at 800. C&G does not address the merits of the Hall' s decision, choosing instead to rest its argument on the grounds that Hall is neither controlling nor persuasive because it was not decided in the Fifth Circuit. C&G contends that White alone must control our analysis. Hall' s determination that pre-employment military service is not included in the limitation period appears consistent with the legislative decision to accommodate employers' concerns regarding reemployment rights of indefinite duration. Correlating the duration of a veteran's reemployment rights with the length of his or her prior enlistment contracts would lead to incongruous results. For example, an employer's obligation to reemploy two veterans who terminated their employment and reenlisted on the same day would expire at different times—based not on the degree of inconvenience caused by the employees' departure, but rather based solely on service completed prior to their initial employment. Such a result could lead to precisely the type of discriminatory hiring practices now prohibited by the USERRA.4 White v. Frank, 718 F.Supp. 592, involved a thirty-year veteran of the Air Force who, upon retirement in 1984, subsequently obtained a position with the Postal Service. The veteran, Bruce 4 See 38 U.S.C. § 4311 (West Supp.1996). 11 White (White), held the position for just under six months before he resigned to pursue another civilian job opportunity. Id. at 594. Six months after his resignation, White sought reinstatement to his former Postal Service position, but was denied. White brought an EEOC claim asserting that he was denied reinstatement on the basis of his race, color, age, and physical handicap. Id. The Postal Service and the EEOC denied his claims. Id. White subsequently filed suit in federal district court under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Rehabilitation Act, the conspiracy provisions of the Civil Rights Act, and, finally, the VRRA. Id. Addressing the defendant's motion to dismiss White's VRRA claim, the district court observed that White did not even respond to the arguments that the VRRA was inapplicable. Id. at 597-98. The district court held that, as there was no allegation that the Plaintiff left the Postal Service to join the military and, in fact, White had left for a civil service position, the VRRA was thus wholly inapplicable to this case. Id. In what was plainly dicta, the district court went on to consider the application of section 2024(a) even if the VR[R]A applied in theory. Id. at 598. As C & G notes repeatedly, the district court concluded that section 2024(a)'s limitation period includes pre-employment military service. Id. That White 's statements concerning the application of section 2024(a) do not control the present case is obvious from the fact that White simply had no ability to assert reemployment rights in 12 the first place. The amount of his prior military service was not relevant unless he could establish that he left his position with the Postal Service to enlist (or reenlist) in the military. But White did not ever serve in the military after his Post Office employment and he did not even claim that he ever so served. The veteran in White would not have prevailed on his VRRA claim under either construction of section 2024(a) advanced before this Court. Although C&G discusses at some length the obligations of this Court to adhere to its own precedent, the summary affirmance of White neither addressed the theoretical discussion of section 2024(a) nor, for that matter, any issue other than the exhaustion of administrative remedies under the ADEA. White, 895 F.2d at 24344. C&G's entire argument that the Fifth Circuit adopted the district's court's dicta as a holding rests on the statement in the affirmance that this Court adopted the district court's holdings without limitation. Id. at 243. C&G places too much emphasis on White 's hypothetical discussion. An alternative holding requires, at the very least, to be alternative on the facts before, or asserted to be before, the court. When a court makes a point or illustrates the infirmities of a particular argument by speaking to facts or circumstances that are, without dispute, not present before it, the discussion that follows, by its very nature, does not address the controversy before the court.5 5 We do not disagree with C&G's undisputed contention on brief that  [i]t has long been settled that all alternative rationales for a given result have precedential value.'  (quoting Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 83 F.3d 118, 120 (5th Cir.1996) (citation omitted)). Rather we simply reject C&G's hopeful 13