Opinion ID: 12484
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: DOL Publications

Text: Sykes argues that deference is owed to DOL publications that have stated consistently that pre-employment military service is not included in section 2024(a)'s limitation period. DOL Field Letter No. 20 (1961), Veterans' Reemployment Rights Legal Guide 163 (1964), and the 1970 and 1988 editions of the Veterans' Reemployment Rights Handbook all clearly support the position that pre-employment military service should not be used to determine eligibility for reemployment rights.6 6 DOL Field Letter 20, issued in 1961, states [o]nly military service entered from employment to which restoration is claimed is to be included in computing service time under the 4 year limitation. Id. at 10. The 1964 DOL Legal Guide states that the service limitation was enacted for the purpose of relieving an 16 C&G contends that DOL publications are entitled to no more deference than a writing that their attorneys might publish in support of C&G's position. C&G is incorrect. Although Congress did not explicitly leave a gap in the VRRA and expressly delegate to the DOL the authority to issue regulations concerning this issue, considerable weight should be accorded to an executive department's construction of a statutory scheme it is entrusted to administer. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837, 844, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 2782, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). The DOL is charged with administering the VRRA. See 38 U.S.C.A. § 501 et seq. employer from an unlimited liability to restore to his position an employee who served in the armed forces. Id. at 163. It goes on to state that: The aggregate service limitations were intended only for use by an employer as to whom the serviceman's military service interrupted an existing employment, to which the serviceman might seek restoration, and the chargeable service was only that which interrupted this particular employment. Id. (emphasis added). Similarly, the 1970 Handbook states: It is essential to note that these limitations apply only to active duty performed after the employee leaves the employment to which he claims restoration. Active duty performed before the employment relationship began does not count toward the years of active duty for which the employee is permitted to absent himself from the employer in question. Id. at 20. When the Handbook was reissued in 1988, it contained the same admonition: These limitations apply only to active duty performed after the employee leaves the employment to which he claims restoration. Active duty performed before the employment relationship began does not count toward the years of active duty for which the employee is permitted to absent himself from the employer from whom he seeks restoration. Id. at 5-3. 17 Although [n]either the [Veterans' Reemployment Rights ] Legal Guide nor the [Veterans' Reemployment Rights ] Handbook has the status of interpretive regulations, ... they do have a measure of weight. Helton v. Mercury Freight Lines, Inc., 444 F.2d 365, 368 & n. 4 (5th Cir.1971) (citing Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944)); see also Leib v. GeorgiaPac. Corp., 925 F.2d 240, 245 (8th Cir.1991) (noting that these publications provide  informed guidance'  regarding the VRRA). The weight to be given these DOL publications is enhanced by the longstanding and consistent nature of the position taken, and its inception so soon after the 1961 legislation. E. Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 Sykes emphasizes that the USERRA's legislative history provides that reemployment rights protection shall apply to an individual if such person's period of service, with respect to the employment relationship for which a person seeks reemployment, does not, with certain exceptions, exceed five years. H. Rep. No. 10365, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. 17, reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2449, 2450. Sykes contends that this legislative history should be used to construe section 2024(a). The USERRA legislative history quoted by Sykes, however, addresses a newly-enacted version of the reemployment rights provision which unambiguously provides: (a) Subject to subsections (b), (c), and (d) and to section 4304, any person who is absent from a position of employment by reason of service in the uniformed services shall be entitled to the reemployment rights and benefits and other employment benefits of this chapter if— 18 .... (2) the cumulative length of the absence and of all previous absences from a position of employment with that employer by reason of service in the uniformed services does not exceed five years.... 38 U.S.C. § 4312(a)(2) (West Supp.1996) (emphasis added). The newly-enacted provisions of the USERRA unambiguously provide for the precise result that Sykes contends can be derived from section 2024(a). The USERRA's legislative history's guidance on the operation of section 4312(a)(2)—which is worded differently from section 2024(a)—sheds little light on the construction of section 2024(a). Much more significant in the legislative history of the USERRA is the House Report's background discussion that states that the task force that drafted the Act intended the USERRA to be largely a clarification of existing law. H. Rep., supra, at 2451 (noting that the current statute is complex and sometimes ambiguous, thereby allowing for misinterpretations). Indeed, under the USERRA, the DOL is given the authority to promulgate regulations to resolve the textual ambiguities under the Act. See 38 U.S.C. § 4331; H. Rep., supra, at 2473 (discussing the new regulatory power and acknowledging the measure of weight courts have afforded statutory interpretations in the Handbook and Legal Guide ). Although not dispositive, the legislative history of the USERRA indicates that a limited degree of deference to the DOL is appropriate and that the USERRA's provisions—which expressly adopt Sykes's position—likely were a clarification of existing law under section 2024(a). 19 F. C&G's Abuse Argument C&G contends that a construction of section 2024(a) that would include only post-employment military service in a determination of eligibility for reemployment rights would permit abuse of the VRRA's reemployment rights scheme: [A] person could obtain private employment, quit, enlist in the military, leave the military, demand and obtain reemployment under the VRRA, quit again, reenlist in the military, leave the military, again demand and obtain reemployment under the VRRA, quit again.... C&G's rather farfetched slippery-slope concern—one that so far as we are aware has never surfaced in actual practice, in legislative history, in administrative publications, or in relevant literature—is more than adequately addressed by the protective doctrines that both guard against abuses of veteran reemployment rights and limit employers' exposure. For example, to qualify for reemployment rights under the VRRA, the controlling determination is whether, regardless of the contract of employment, there was a reasonable expectation that the employment would be continuous and for an indefinite time. Akers v. Arnett, 597 F.Supp. 557, 561 (S.D.Tex.1983), aff'd, 748 F.2d 283 (5th Cir.1984). Other abuses of the VRRA are also precluded, for example, an employer need not create a position where the veteran's position no longer exists, Horton v. U.S. Steel Corp., 286 F.2d 710 (5th Cir.1961), and an employer need not rehire an employee terminated for cause simply because he subsequently becomes a veteran, Henry v. Anderson County, 522 F.Supp. 1112 (D.Tenn.1981). Further, VRRA reemployment must be sought within ninety days from 20 the receipt of an honorable discharge from military service. 38 U.S.C. former § 2021(a)(2); Leib v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 925 F.2d 240, 246 n. 10 (8th Cir.1991). In short, legitimate defenses were available to C&G to challenge either Sykes's status as a permanent employee or his ability to perform his position competently. C&G neither alleged nor argued before the district court that Sykes abused the VRRA; its farfetched theoretical concerns regarding abuse of the statutory reemployment rights scheme are not present in this appeal.