Court Opinion

ID: 9476003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:45:16.248028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:04.822433
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but am not in accord with their *597reasoning. I believe that the Magistrate’s reasoning is correct.
When Colon entered on active military duty he had 20 days remaining on the so-called “lay-off” list. During the ensuing 20 days neither Colon nor anyone else on the lay-off list was recalled to work. That ends the matter as far as I’m concerned. If during that 20-day period Colon had been recalled to work, and unable to respond because of military service, then the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act would require that Colon be reemployed upon completion of his military service. Such is the meaning which I attribute to the Act, and such is the meaning given the Act by the only cases bearing on the matter. See Kelly v. Ford Instrument Co., 298 F.2d 399 (2d Cir.1962) and Hall v. Chicago & Eastern Ill. R.R. Co., 240 F.Supp. 797, 799 (N.D.Ill.1964).
The majority hold that on the date Colon entered on active service everything stopped, and when he later presented himself for reemployment on July 3, 1981, his remaining time on the lay-off list (20 days) started to run. Presumably, under that approach, if Colon had been recalled to work during the 20 days immediately after entry on active service, such would have been a nullity, and Colon’s only right under the Act was to get back on the lay-off list for 20 days after completion of active service. Certainly, in my mind at least, the Act cannot be construed to mean that if Colon had been recalled to work during the first 20 days he was on active duty he would be protected, and, at the same time, if he was not recalled during that 20-day period, as he was not, he is, under the Act, entitled to be back on the lay-off list for an additional 20 days after his return from active duty. Colon can’t have it both ways.
The purpose behind the Act is to insure that a person who involuntarily leaves his workbench for military service is not disadvantaged thereby. It is not to give such person an advantage over his fellow worker. See Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 286, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 1111, 90 L.Ed. 1230 (1946). I know of no case which supports the approach taken by the majority to the fact situation before us. In both Kelly and Hall, supra, the Act was held to apply where a person enters on active military service at a time when he is on a lay-off list, and thereafter, while in the military and while still on the lay-off list, is recalled to work.
I recognize that my disagreement with the majority is, in a sense, academic, since, under either approach, Colon will not get his job back as a refuse collector. I continue to disagree, however, because in my view the interpretation given the Act by the majority turns the Act upside down.