Court Opinion

ID: 9508458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:32:19.240134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:33.041174
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY,
dissenting:
The majority has given the statehouse gangs a blueprint on how to avoid the veterans’ preference in job hiring. Simply parse the experience of the favored non-veteran into as many segments as needed, and award each segment the maximum points.
The successful applicant here was employed for ten years as an “operations assistant” at the local office of the Federal Land Bank. She did clerical and stenographic work. For that experience her job was segmented as follows:
Clerical office experience 6 points
Deeds and property descriptions 12 points
Mapping 12 points
Typing 8 points
Calculators 8 points
Other machines 6 points
Total 52 points
Olson had done work as a surveyor, had successfully completed a real estate training course, held a current real estate license for the state of Idaho, and had computer experience. Witness his comparable scoring:
Deeds and property description 4 points
Calculators 4 points
Other machines 0 points
The “other machines” for which the successful applicant got maximum points were a bank proof machine, a bank posting machine, and a copy machine. The scorers did not include the water cooler, but probably would have if needed. None of these machines is used by an appraisal clerk except the copy machine, the technical difficulty of which can be mastered by a first-grader. The scorers ignored Olson’s computer experience.
Having rigged the scores for the successful applicant, the scorers then ignored the law, which declares that if the applicants are substantially equally qualified, the veterans’ preference is decisive. Olson could not be hired under the scorers’ view unless he had the highest score, but then he would not have to call on his preference rights. Thus is the veterans’ preference emasculated.
*40Olson is not only a Viet Nam veteran, but is also a certified handicapped person. He was entitled to the job on both counts. We should make sure he got it.
MR. JUSTICE HUNT concurs in the foregoing dissent of MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY.