Court Opinion

ID: 9507764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:25:13.418574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:23.394721
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE GULBRANDSON,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
It is my opinion that the Crabtree interpretation of the Veterans and Handicapped Civilians Employment Preference Act should not be retroactively applied.
In 1934, the Attorney General issued his opinion (15 A.G. Op. 417) that the Act granted a veteran preference only *94when his qualifications equaled the most qualified non-preferred applicant. In a later opinion (21 A.G. Op. 105), in 1945, the Attorney General construed the preference as absolute, but in a 1949 opinion (23 A.G. Op. 46), the Attorney General found the preference to be not absolute, but to consist only of a certain percentage to be added to the veterans’ examination grade.
It is clear that the agency charged with administering the Act followed the 1949 Attorney General opinion and interpreted the Act as granting a relative preference. The Crab-tree decision, of June 16, 1983, ruling that the preference was absolute, effectively overturned an executive interpretation which had been relied upon for more than thirty-three years by state, county and city agencies.
It is my view that, in effect, a new principle of law was established, which overruled clear past precedent, and the Crabtree decision resolved an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed, and therefore, the decision should not be applied retroactively.