Court Opinion

ID: 9640169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:59:44.25389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:27.808473
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Cohen:
In my view of tbe disputed' contract an employee’s right to two weeks’ vacation with pay accrues at tbe end of tbe full year of employment immediately preceding tbe year in which be actually takes bis vacation. Tbe employee’s paid vacation is part of tbe consideration for bis services for tbe year prior to tbe year of bis vacation.1
*87The vacation pay clause regulating the year that the employee quits or is dismissed creates a separate and distinct right to prorated consideration in recognition of the fact that the employee has worked part of a year but won’t be able to take his vacation. The employer’s contention that paid vacations were in consideration for continued employment does not accord with the employer’s own practice of allowing vacations at the beginning of the year of employment alleged to be the consideration for the vacation. Nor does it accord with what I think would be the legitimate expectation of an employee who was told that if he worked a year he would get two weeks’ paid vacation.2 The majority’s interpretation of the contract would require the employee to work a full year in order to be eligible to work another full year to earn the vacation with pay. This employer did not so interpret the contract in the past and I would not permit such an interpretation now.
I dissent.
Mr. Justice Eagen joins in this dissent.

 These jurisdictions have adopted the “payment for past services rationale”: In re Wil-Low Cafeterias, Inc., 111 F. 2d 429 (2d Cir. 1940); In re Public Ledger, Inc., 161 F. 2d 762 (3d Cir. 1947); Brampton Woolen Company v. Local Union No. 112, 95 N.H. 255, 61 A. 2d 796 (1948); Division of Labor Law Enforcement, State *87of California v. Sampson, 172 F. 2d 400 (9th Cir. 1949); Kavanas v. Mead, 171 F. 2d 195 (4th Cir. 1948); Textile Workers of America v. Paris Fabric Mills, 18 N.Y. Super. 421, 87 A. 2d 458 (1952); Calvine Cotton Mills, Inc. v. TWUA, 238 N.C. 719, 79 S.E. 2d 181 (1953); Owens v. Press Publishing Co., 20 N.J. 537, 120 A. 2d 442 (1956); Botany Mills, Inc. v. Textile Workers Union of America, 50 N.J. Super. 18, 141 A. 2d 107 (1958); Matter of Potoker, 286 App. Div. 733, 146 N.Y.S. 2d 616 (1955) affirmed sub. nom. Matter of Potoker (Brooklyn Eagle), 2 N.Y. 2d 553, 161 N.Y.S. 2d 609, 141 N.E. 2d 841 (1957) and General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Local No. 512, etc., 191 F. Supp. 911 (D.C.R.I. 1961), as well as numerous cases reported in the Labor Arbitration Reports. See also Survival of Earned Rights, 54 NW. U.L. Rev. 646 (1959).

The contract provides: “All operators who have been in the employ of the Company one year or more will be given two weeks’ vacation with pay,”