Opinion ID: 2719372
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deadline to Obtain Badge

Text: Locke correctly points out that the Agreement did not expressly state a deadline for him to obtain his badge. -8- Nevertheless, such a deadline is plainly implied from the following paragraph of the Agreement: Concurrent with Employee's reinstatement to his former position, Employee's personnel file will reflect a disciplinary suspension without pay from Sept 19, 2009 through employees [sic] return to work, October 16, 2009. Employee and the Union understand and agree that reinstatement is contingent upon completion of any pre- employment steps required by law, Company policy, or the terms of this Agreement, including, if applicable, a security screening. Locke implores us to read these adjacent sentences in hermetic isolation, arguing that the time period in the first sentence refers only to the length of the suspension and not the date by when any pre-employment steps must be completed and that the second sentence in turn does not indicate that the steps must be completed by a particular date. This is too strained a reading. The first sentence specifies October 16 as the date of Locke's return to work; the second sentence renders reinstatement conditional upon completion of a security screening and other preemployment steps. The only reasonable inference is that these steps had to be completed by the date of reinstatement, i.e., October 16. A cursory review of the Agreement's backdrop compels the same conclusion. See generally McAdams v. Mass. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 391 F.3d 287, 299 (1st Cir. 2004) (under Massachusetts law, agreements should be construed with reference to the situation of -9- the parties when they made it and to the objects sought to be accomplished (internal quotation marks omitted)). The undisputed testimony of Robert Andrews, Locke's supervisor, established that the badge was necessary for Locke to access the secure areas where he worked. Indeed, Locke himself testified that his reinstatement was contingent upon obtaining a security badge. Because a security badge was a sine qua non of Locke's return to work both under the language of the Agreement and under airport security policies, the Agreement is properly construed as requiring Locke to obtain a badge by October 16, the date of his return.