Court Opinion

ID: 9452867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:54:51.332062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:23.711085
License: Public Domain

MADDEN, Judge
(dissenting):
I would grant the appellees’ petition for rehearing. This court’s decision was announced on January 31, 1966. On February 28, 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Accardi et al. v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 383 U.S. 225, 86 S.Ct. 768, 15 L.Ed. 2d 717. In that case the Court of Appeals had decided that the severance pay there involved did not concern “seniority, status, and pay” within the meaning of §§ 8(b) (B) and 8(c) of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940; that it was a “fringe benefit” and subject to whatever contractual provisions the employer had made with the union which was the bargaining agent for the employees. The Supreme Court said, in Accardi, pp. 229-230, 86 S.Ct. p. 771.
As we said in Fishgold v. Sullivan Corp. [328 U.S. 275, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 90 L.Ed. 1230], supra, “[N]o practice of employers or agreements between employers and unions can cut down the service adjustment benefits which Congress has secured the veteran under the Act.” At 285 [66 S.Ct. at 1111], The term seniority is not to be limited by a narrow, technical definition but must be given a meaning that is consonant with the intention of Congress as expressed in the 1940 Act. That intention was to preserve for the returning veterans the rights and benefits which would have automatically aecured to them had they remained in private employment rather than responding to the call of their country. In this case there can be no doubt that the amounts of the severance payments were based primarily on the employees’ length of service with the railroad.
In our instant case, two of the employees had worked for almost a year, one lacking only seven days of the year necessary, under the union contract, to earn a paid vacation. Their work was interrupted, thus short of the necessary year, by their entrance into military service. The Supreme Court’s language in Accardi, quoted above, fits their situations exactly. The rights and benefits (paid vacations) which would have automatically accrued to them had they remained in private employment rather than responding to the call of their country are the rights and benefits here at issue.
Three of the employees here involved worked both before and after several holidays. But their work after the holidays was not sufficiently soon after the holidays to entitle them, under the contract, to pay for the holidays. The reason why they were not at work immediately after the holidays was that they were then in the military service. The Supreme Court’s language in Accardi applies to their situation.
I gather from the Supreme Court’s opinion in Accardi that the distinction which the Court of Appeals made in Ac-cardi, and which this court makes in the instant case, between “seniority, status and pay” on the one hand and “fringe benefits” on the other does not seem very vital to the Supreme Court. The issue seems rather to be whether the rights and benefits claimed by the employees “would have automatically accrued to them had they remained in their civilian jobs” instead of entering the military service.
I think our decision is contrary to Accardi and that we should grant the petition for rehearing.