Court Opinion

ID: 9636648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:36:29.058894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:47.648635
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
by Mr. Justice Bell:
The majority opinion has remanded this case to the court below to admit evidence of the prior negotiations of the parties in order to aid it in determining the meaning of the words “voluntary quitting”. The paragraph in question of the contract of January 1, 1943 and of the collective bargaining agreement of October 17, 1945 is short and clear: “Seniority shall cease upon (a) justifiable discharge; (b) voluntary quitting; (c) if the employee does not return to work* within five days after written notice to address appearing on the Company’s records. The Company shall notify the Union at the same time the employee is notified to return to work.”
The words “voluntary quitting” can not be considered alone, but must be considered in conjunction with the rest of the sentence and the entire paragraph; and when so considered it is clear that they refer to a voluntary quitting by an employee of his work or employment. Any other interpretation of the contract would be not only a distortion of the English language ■ — a promotion in America is not a “quitting” — but also would be obviously very unfair and unjust to the plaintiffs, as well as injurious to the fundamentals of business efficiency and progress. Yet that would be the effect if an employee’s promotion was interpreted to be a “voluntary quitting of his employment.” There is, in my judgment, no ambiguity in the language of the contract or of the collective bargaining agreement and *28therefore no evidence of the prior negotiations between the union and the employer is admissible: Grubb v. Rockey, 366 Pa. 592, 79 A. 2d 255; Gianni v. Russell, 281 Pa. 320, 126 A. 791; Speier v. Michelson, 303 Pa. 66, 154 A. 127; O’Brien v. O’Brien, 362 Pa. 66, 66 A. 2d 309.
I would bold that seniority bad not ceased under tbe above mentioned agreement and that the decree of the court below should be reversed with directions to grant plaintiffs the relief sought in their bill of complaint.

 Italics throughout, ours.