Hilton v. Sullivan

• Decision Date: 01 June 1948
• Docket Number: No. 560,560
• Citation: 92 L.Ed. 1416,334 U.S. 323,68 S.Ct. 1020
• Parties: HILTON v. SULLIVAN et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

334 U.S. 323

68 S.Ct. 1020

92 L.Ed. 1416

HILTON

v SULLIVAN et al.

No. 560.

Argued April 21, 1948.

Decided June 1, 1948.

Mr. Charles Fahy, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

[Argument of Counsel from page 324 intentionally omitted] Mr. Paul A. Sweeney, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case raises questions concerning the relative rights of war veteran and nonveteran employees to retention in government service when a program of reduction in the number of government civilian employees makes it necessary for some to be chosen for discharge. The acute point of controversy is this: In the treatment of permanent tenure civil service employees, should qualified honorably discharged war veterans, merely because they are such, be retained in preference to nov eterans, even though those nonveterans have served the Government a substantially longer time than the veterans. The questions depend upon whether certain regulations promulgated by the Civil Service Commission are valid under a proper interpretation of controlling statutes.

The petitioner was for twelve years, from 1934 to 1946, a duly appointed permanent status civil service employee working in the Charleston Navy Yard. His work was of such high quality as to earn him an efficiency rating of 'Excellent.' By successive promotions, he arrived at the responsible position of Leadingman Shipfitter at a basic wage of $12.08 per day. January 7, 1946, shortly after the post-hostility reduction of governmental employees began, petitioner was demoted to a position paying $10.08 per day as part of a reduction in force. This demotion apparently was due in part to the fact that he did not have a veteran's preference. October 7, 1946 petitioner was notified that due to curtailment of work and funds it was necessary to eliminate certain positions in his competitive level and that in accordance with civil service regulations his name had been reached for action. He was told that, if he approved, he was then to be placed in a one-year 'furlough status' rather than absolutely separated from service because it was hoped that conditions might justify his recall to duty within the year. He was also informed that his 'active service' had already been terminated and that unless sooner recalled to duty he would be separated for reduction in force at the end of his one-year furlough period.

The civil service regulations said to require termination of petitioner's active service divide government employees into three main groups—A, B, and C. Group A, which has the highest priority for retention, is composed of 'permanent employees'; groups B and C are composed of employees with limited tenures of employment. Group A is divided into five subgroups, the first three of which are of particular importance here. These three subgroups are:

Subgroup A-1 Plus, (Veterans of World War II) for a one-year period after return to duty;

Subgroup A-1, Veteran's preference employees with 'good' (or higher) efficiency ratings;

Subgroup A-2, Employees without veteran's preference with 'good' (or higher) efficiency ratings.¹

The result of these Commission groupings is that A-1 Plus veterans have the highest retention priority; A-1 the second; and A-2, in which, not having a veteran's preference, petitioner is classified, has the third. Thus if these regulations are valid, every member of both Subgroup A-1 Plus and Subgroup A-1 must be retained in preference to petitioner.

After receiving notice of his one-year furlough, petitioner filed this complaint in district court for declaratory judgment, mandamus, and other relief. The defendants were the Secretary of the Navy and the members of the Civil Service Commission. The complaint charged that petitioner's demotion and furlough were the result of the Commission's regulations which prescribed retention priorities for veterans' preference employees in A-1 Plus and A-1 over all nonveteran employees without regard to the longer periods of service of some of the nonveteran employees, including petitioner. The failure of the Commission to consider relative length of service in establishing these retention priorities was charged to be 'unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious, without statutory warrant, and contrary to the express provisions' of applicable statutes. The petitioner's prayer was that the Commission's A-1 Plus and A-1 classifications be declared void, that the Secretary of the Navy be compelled to restore him to his original o sition as Leadingman Shipfitter, that the Commission be required to rescind the regulations and promulgate new ones in accordance with law, and that 'such other and further relief as is just' be granted him. After answer and certain stipulations of fact, both parties moved for summary judgment and the government's motion was granted. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed. 165 F.2d 251. Importance of the questions raised prompted us to grant certiorari. 333 U.S. 841, 68 S.Ct. 663.

First. While admitting petitioner's right to challenge the validity of Subgroup A-1 in this action, the Government contends that he cannot challenge A-1 Plus. The premise of this argument is that, even if A-1 Plus were invalid, the veterans grouped in it would fall within Subgroup A-1. We find no adequate support for this premise in the record. Veterans in Subgroup A-1 Plus could not qualify for A-1 unless they had efficiency ratings of 'good' or better. But the language defining A-1 Plus includes veterans of all ratings, even below 'good.' And when the summary judgment in this case was rendered, 61 of the 118 veterans comprising A-1 Plus had not been rated at all. True, the Government asserts that 60 of these veterans have now been rated 'good' and the sixty-first member has resigned. But the potential membership of Subgroup A-1 Plus is not limited to those veterans who were in it when the case was tried. The classification provides for a continuing status of preference of one year for all returning veterans who left government employment for war duty. There is no indication that additional war veterans qualified for classification under A-1 Plus will not return to Charleston Navy Yard and reclaim shipfitter jobs in preference to otherwise qualified nonveteran employees. And the Government does not claim that this classification has been repealed or altered so that in the future it can include only those veterans who have an efficiency rating of 'good' or higher. Under these circumstances we are unable to say that all members of A-1 Plus could qualify or will be able to qualify as members of A-1. Therefore we cannot accept the government's contention that petitioner's likelihood of injury from A-1 Plus is too remote to justify his attack on it. If invalid, there is as much reason for his right to challenge this subgroup as for his right to challenge Subgroup A-1.

Second. The Government finds support for Subgroup A-1 Plus in § 8 of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 885, 890, 50 U.S.C.Appendix, § 308, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 308. That section provides reemployment rights to any person who under that Act left a position other than a temporary one in order to perform training and service in the armed forces and who satisfactorily completed his training. It further requires that upon appropriate application after release from training, such person, if still qualified to perform the duties of his old job and 'if such position was in the employ of the United States Government, * * * shall be restored to such position or to a position of like seniority, status, and pay.' Section 8(c) also provides that a person so restored to his old position 'shall not be discharged from such position without cause within one year after such restoration.'

There appears to be little room for contention that there is ambiguity in the language that Congress selected to express its purpose to require the restoration of a former government employee who entered the armed forces to his old position and to give him the right to retention for a year. The language is that such an employee 'shall be restored' to his position or to one like it, supplemented by language that he 'shall not be discharged from such position without cause within one year after such restoration.' We have examined the legislative history of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 and find nothing whatever which faintly suggests that Congress intended its language to be e §§ mandatory than implied by the words it used. The command in § 8(b)(A) that the Federal Government rehire its returning veteran employees contrasted sharply with the requirement in § 8(b)(B) that a private employer need not reemploy such a veteran when 'the employer's circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so.' This difference was noted by the congressional sponsors of the 1940 Act, who thought that the Federal Government should set an example to private industry by providing jobs for all returning veteran employees.² Congress, having, thus provided that the veteran who left a government job must be reemployed, also required his retention by declaring that he should not be discharged within a year without cause.

Petitioner contends, however, that this Court's interpretations of § 8(b)(B) and § 8(c) in Trailmobile Co. v. Whirls, 331 U.S. 40, 67 S.Ct. 982, 91 L.Ed. 1328, and in Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Co., 328 U.S. 275, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 90 L.Ed. 1230, 167 A.L.R. 110, require a holding that the regulations establishing A-1 Plus are invalid. The Trailmobile case dealt only with the obligations of a private employer to veterans after the first year of their return to his employment, and our holding there is of no relevance here. In the other case, Fishgold, following his discharge from the armed forces, had been restored to his old position by his former private...