Court Opinion

ID: 9714923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:49:17.344801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:29.710561
License: Public Domain

CASTILLE, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority here, relying on Commonwealth ex rel. Maurer v. O’Neill, 368 Pa. 369, 83 A.2d 382 (1951), holds that two sections of the Veterans’ Preference Act, 51 Pa.C.S. §§ 7103(b) and 7104(b), are unconstitutional only insofar as they give preferential treatment to veterans seeking promotions in public employment. O’Neill, however, involved a constitutional provision that was deleted by the 1967 amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution and hence, is not applicable to the instant matter. Thus, I respectfully disagree with the majority holding which upholds the constitutional distinction set forth in O’Neill between original appointments and promotional preferences for veterans. Accordingly, because I believe that these two veterans’ preference provisions relating to promotions are constitutional, I must dissent.
In O’Neill, swpra, this Court, in a four-to-three decision, declared the Veterans Preference Act of May 22, 1945, 51 P.S. § 492.1 et seq.,' unconstitutional insofar as it provided veterans the same ten point credit towards promotions that they received for original appointments. The O’Neill court found that the ten point preference was permissible as to the original appointment setting because veterans are apt to bring more desirable positive attributes (experience, discipline, etc.) to public service than non-veterans. However, the O’Neill court declared that the same ten point preference in the promotional setting was unconstitutional since the General Assembly acted unreasonably and hence, unconstitutionally, by placing the same high value on the benefits of military training in the promotional setting as it did in the original appointment setting.
*508As the majority here acknowledges, the O’Neill Court, through reliance on Commonwealth ex rel. Graham v. Schmid, 333 Pa. 568, 3 A.2d 701 (1938), rooted its decision in Article III, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1874. Article III, Section 7 prohibited the General Assembly from “granting to any corporation, association or individual any special or exclusive privilege or immunity.” However, Article III, Section 7 was amended in 1967 and renumbered as Article III, Section 32. This amendment eliminated the above clause contained in the 1874 Constitution that prohibited laws granting special or exclusive privileges.2
The Veterans’ Preference Act, which was declared unconstitutional by O’Neill, was ultimately repealed after the decision in O’Neill was rendered. However, in 1976, nine years after the amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution, the Veterans’ Preference Act was reenacted in its present form. Because the amendment to our state constitution eliminated the provision on which O’Neill relied and Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) were reenacted after the constitutional amendment, I believe that O’Neill no longer provides valid precedent for the majority’s holding that Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) are unconstitutional as they relate to promotions.
Recognizing that the repeal of Article III, Section 7 places O’Neill’s reasoning in jeopardy, the majority attempts to find analogous language in Article I, Section 17 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Article I, Section 17 prohibits the General Assembly from passing any law “making irrevocable any grant of special privileges or immunities ...” Thus, Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) of the Veterans’ Preference Act, as they relate to promotions, will be constitutional as long as the preferences are not irrevocable.
The majority finds that the preferences in promotion are “irrevocable” because one’s status as a veteran is not subject to revocation and the preferences afforded by Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) “are not conditioned upon any factor or event.” *509While I agree that one’s status as a veteran is not subject to revocation, I cannot agree that the preferences established for promotions in Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) are not conditioned upon any factor or event. Here, the Veterans Preference Act entitles veterans to an additional ten points on his or her civil service exam grade for a promotion as well as a preference for a promotion. However, these benefits are conditioned upon veterans achieving a passing score on their exams and meeting the qualifications for the promotion. See also 53 Pa.S. § 55637 (applicants, including veterans, can be rejected for promotion if person lacks the minimum physical and educational qualifications for the position or is generally unfit for the position because of either an alcohol or drug dependency or conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude). Moreover, the fact that veterans receive the preference for one promotion does not mean that the same preference applies to future promotions. Rather, veterans must meet the qualifying conditions of the future positions before they will be entitled to the veterans preferences. Since the preferences afforded to veterans by Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) of the Veterans’ Preference Act are not irrevocable, these provisions cannot be found to run afoul of Article I, Section 17. See Johnson v. Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, 453 Pa. 329, 309 A.2d 528 (1973) (rights not irrevocable within meaning of Article I, Section 17 if they exist only under certain conditions or for a definite term). Thus, I believe that Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b), as they relate to promotions, are constitutional.
Finally, I believe the majority’s reliance on O’Neill to support its decision is misplaced because it will continue to improperly impose a constitutional line between veterans’ benefits preference for original appointments and promotions. In O’Neill, the majority of the Court held that while the ten points added to a veterans’ passing exam score is constitutional when applied to original appointments, that same provision somehow becomes unconstitutional when applied to promotions. However, Justice Stearne, joined by two other Justices, dissented in O’Neill because he believed that the distinction drawn by the majority between promotions and *510original appointments was unreasonable since the same positive attributes veterans bring to their original appointments also apply equally to promotions. Thus, Justice Stearne believed that it was not unreasonable for the legislature to give veterans the same ten point credit for promotions that they received for original appointments. Therefore, Justice Stearne concluded that the ten point veterans’ preference scheme was constitutional as it related to both original appointments and promotions.
I agree with Justice Stearne’s dissent in O’Neill because I am also of the opinion that there should be no judicially recognized differences between original appointments and promotions for the purpose of bestowing veterans’ preferences. The Veterans’ Preference Act exists as a form of consideration for society’s recognition that (1) veterans bring highly valued skills conducive to the better performance of public duties; (2) veterans suffer from a comparative disadvantage relative to non-veterans because of their exclusion from the labor market during their period of military service for the nation; and, (3) veterans have rendered the greatest service a citizen can perform, the defense of our liberty. Schmid, supra at 573-74, 3 A.2d at 704 (1938). In order for the Veterans’ Preference Act to be constitutional, it is essential that its provisions require that veterans possess the minimum qualifications necessary to properly discharge the duties of the position which they seek. Id.
Here, veterans must be qualified before they can avail themselves to the preferences afforded by Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) to original appointments and promotions. The majority, however, ignores this fact, and by doing so, continues to promote the distinction first articulated in O’Neill between original appointments and promotions because the majority continues to believe that the attributes offered by veterans over non-veterans in the form of positive attributes diminish once veterans are appointed to public employment positions.
I, however, do not find the majority’s line of reasoning to be persuasive. Positive attributes developed in veterans through *511their military training and service do not evaporate and disappear upon their entering public employment. Were this not so, it would indeed be difficult to justify preferential treatment for veterans in obtaining public employment positions in the first instance. How can the majority now say it was irrational and unreasonable for the General Assembly to find that those same qualities are still present when veterans become eligible for promotion and thus entitle him to preferential treatment? As was stated by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in State ex rel. Higgins v. Civil Service Commission, 139 Conn. 102, 90 A.2d 862 (1952) (veterans’ preference point scheme applied to original appointments also constitutional when applied to promotions):
If the qualities have once been acquired, it is reasonably probable that they will continue to characterize the veteran and thus afford the same potential value in promotions as they do in appointments. At least, the legislature could reasonably have taken this position, and since it could, we are powerless to interfere with its decision.
Id. at 111, 90 A.2d at 866. See also, Koelfgen v. Jackson, 355 F.Supp. 243 (D.Minn.1972), aff'd, 410 U.S. 976, 93 S.Ct. 1502, 36 L.Ed.2d 173 (1973) {five point preference given to veterans for promotions was constitutional); McNamara v. Director of Civil Service, 330 Mass. 22, 110 N.E.2d 840 (1953) (improper for court to draw constitutional line between preference for original appointment and promotions; hence, two point preference to veterans upon passing promotion exam was constitutional). Thus, I believe the majority’s reliance on O’Neill to justify its ruling that Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) are unconstitutional as they relate to promotions is improper because it amounts to the judiciary interfering with a reasonable classification made after considered deliberation by the General Assembly.
Based on the above reasons, I believe that Sections 7103(b) and 7104(b) are constitutional. The majority decision to the contrary once again makes this yet another day of infamy with regard to the rights of Pennsylvania’s veterans. See Brickhouse v. Spring-Ford Area School District, 540 Pa. 176, 192, *512656 A.2d 483, 491 (1995) (Castille, J. dissent).3 I, therefore, must respectfully dissent.

. The repealed act was virtually the same as the act addressed in the present case.

. Article III, Section 32, now only prohibits the General Assembly from passing any "local or special law in any case which has been or can be provided for by general law ...”

. In Brickhouse, the majority held that a veteran who applied for a vacancy on a teaching staff and was able to establish that he was certified to teach in the state did not have to be hired for the position pursuant to the Veterans’ Preference Act because the veteran did not meet the additional qualifications placed on the position by the local school district. I dissented because I believed that public employers should refer only to the qualifications defined by the General Assembly and its statutes as the ones being necessary to fill a public employment position.