Monroe v. Standard Oil Company

• Decision Date: 17 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-298,80-298
• Citation: 69 L.Ed.2d 226,452 U.S. 549,101 S.Ct. 2510
• Parties: Roger D. MONROE, Petitioner, v. The STANDARD OIL COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

452 U.S. 549

101 S.Ct. 2510

69 L.Ed.2d 226

Roger D. MONROE, Petitioner,

v The STANDARD OIL COMPANY.

No. 80-298.

Argued March 4, 1981.

Decided June 17, 1981.

Syllabus

The Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 provides in 38 U.S.C. § 2021(b)(3) that any employee of a private employer "shall not be denied retention in employment or any promotion or other incident or advantage of employment because of any obligation as a member of a reserve component of the Armed Forces." Petitioner was an employee in respondent's refinery, which operated 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and whose employees worked five 8-hour days weekly but in a different 5-day sequence each week. As a military reservist, petitioner had to attend training with his unit one weekend a month and for two weeks each summer. On a number of weekends, petitioner was required to attend training on days when he was scheduled to work at the refinery, and in most instances he was unable to exchange shifts with other employees as he was permitted to do. Respondent provided him with leaves of absence to attend training, as required by 38 U.S.C. § 2024(d), but it did not pay him for the hours he did not work nor did it take steps to permit him to make up those hours by working outside the normal schedule. Petitioner brought an action against respondent in Federal District Court, alleging, inter alia, that respondent had violated § 2021(b)(3). The District Court granted summary judgment for petitioner on the ground that respondent, by not scheduling petitioner for a full 40-hour week on those occasions when he was unable to exchange shifts, had denied him "an incident or advantage of employment" within the meaning of § 2021(b)(3), and awarded him an amount for wages lost on those "work dates when an accommodation should have been made." The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondent had taken no discriminatory action proscribed by § 2021(b)(3).

Held : Section 2021(b)(3) does not require an employer to make work-scheduling accommodations for employee-reservists not made for other employees. Pp. 554-566.

(a) The legislative history indicates that § 2021(b)(3) was enacted for the significant but limited purpose of protecting the employee-reservist from discrimination like discharge and demotion motivated solely by reserve status. There is nothing in § 2021(b)(3) or its legislative history to indicate that Congress even considered imposing an obligation on employers to provide a special work-scheduling preference, but rather the history suggests that Congress did not intend employers to provide special benefits to employee-reservists not generally made available to other employees. Pp. 554-562.

(b) While this case involves absences for weekend duty, § 2021(b)(3) refers to "any obligation as a member of a Reserve component." Accordingly, there is no principled way of distinguishing between an employer's obligation to make scheduling accommodations for weekends as opposed to, for example, annual 2-week training periods, or even longer periods of training or duty. There is nothing in the legislative history to indicate that Congress intended reservists to be entitled to all "incidents and advantages of employment" accorded during their absence to working employees, including regular time and overtime pay. P.p. 562-563.

(c) There is nothing in the statute or its history to support petitioner's contention that § 2021(b)(3) only requires an employer under the circumstances of this case to make a "reasonable accommodation" to employee-reservists. Such a "reasonable accommodation" has already been made in § 2024(d) by requiring employers to grant a leave of absence to reservists whose duties force them to miss time at work. To say that § 2021(b)(3) would be of little significance unless a "reasonable accommodation" requirement is imposed, ignores the fact that the nondiscrimination requirements of the section already impose substantial obligations on employers by precluding them from ridding themselves of the inconveniences and productivity losses resulting from employee-reservists' absence by discharging or otherwise disadvantaging such employees solely because of their military obligations. Pp. 563-565.

6th Cir. 613 F.2d 641, affirmed.

Alan I. Horowitz, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Paul S. McAuliffe, Cleveland, Ohio, for respondent.

Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded that 38 U.S.C. § 2021(b)(3), a provision of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974, does not require an employer to provide preferential scheduling of work hours for an employee who must be absent from work to fulfill his military reserve obligations. 613 F.2d 641. We granted certiorari to consider the petitioner's contention that an employer has a statutory duty to make work-scheduling accommodations for reservist-employees not made for other employees, whenever such accommodations reasonably can be accomplished. 449 U.S. 949, 101 S.Ct. 352, 66 L.Ed.2d 213.¹

I

In 1975 and 1976, the years pertinent to this litigation, the petitioner was a full-time employee in the respondent's continuous process refinery in Lima, Ohio. The refinery was operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. To insure that the burdens of weekend and shift work would be equitably divided among its employees over the course of a year, the respondent scheduled its employees to work five 8-hour days in a row weekly, but in a different 5-day sequence each week. Under the respondent's collective agreement with its union, however, an employee could, with the acquiescence of his foreman and if the change did not require the payment of overtime, exchange shifts with another employee.

During the same period, the petitioner was a military re- servist,² and had to attend training with his unit one weekend a month and for two weeks each summer. On a number of weekends, the petitioner was required to attend training on days when he was scheduled to work at the refinery. Although the petitioner was able on four of these occasions to exchange shifts with other employees, he was unable to make such an exchange in most instances. The respondent provided him with leaves of absence to attend training, as 38 U.S.C. § 2024(d) ³ required it to do, but it did not pay him for the hours he did not work, nor did it take steps to permit him to make up those hours by working outside his normal schedule. When the petitioner was on a leave of absence and could not arrange a switch with another employee, the respondent would make arrangements to fill the vacancy created by the petitioner's absence, arrangements often requiring the payment of overtime wages to the substitute.

In 1976, the petitioner ⁴ brought this action against the respondent alleging that it had violated the provisions of 38 U.S.C. §§ 2021(b)(3) ⁵ and 2024(d). Noting that the first of these sections provides that an employer may not deny a military reservist in his employ any "incident or advantage of employment" because of the employee's obligations to the Reserves, and finding that "being scheduled for a full forty hour week at the [respondent's] refinery constitutes an incident or advantage of employment," the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio granted summary judgment to the petitioner. 446 F.Supp. 616, 618, 619. The court awarded petitioner $1,086.72 for wages lost on those "work dates when an accommodation should have been made." Id., at 619.⁶

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. 613 F.2d 641. First, it determined that the respondent had met the requirements of § 2024(d).⁷ It noted that this section "guarantees terms and conditions of reemployment to reservists returning from inactive duty training," but found that "[i]t does not, however, protect reservists from discrimination by their employers between training assignments." Id., at 643-644.

Next, the Court of Appeals rejected the District Court's interpretation of § 2021(b)(3). It held that this section "merely requires that reservists be treated equally or neutrally with their fellow employees without military obligations." Id., at 646. The appellate court then concluded that the respondent had taken no discriminatory action that is proscribed by § 2021(b)(3):

"The requirement of equal treatment was met in the present case. The parties agreed that appellee was regularly scheduled for forty-hour workweeks, as were his fellow employees. Further, Monroe was scheduled for weekend work in accordance with Sohio's established practice of rotating shifts to insure that all employees would work approximately an equal number of weekend days. Finally, he was treated the same as his coworkers with regard to the right to exchange shifts with other employees." Id., at 646.

II

This case presents the first occasion this Court has had to address issues arising from the statutory provisions, codified at 38 U.S.C. § 2021 et seq., specifically dealing with military reservists.⁸ We have, however, frequently interpreted the somewhat analogous statutory provisions entitling the returning regular veteran to reinstatement with his "seniority, status and pay" intact, 38 U.S.C. § 2021(a), most recently in Coffy v. Republic Steel Corp., 447 U.S. 191, 100 S.Ct. 2100, 65 L.Ed.2d 53, and Alabama Power Co. v. Davis, 431 U.S. 581, 97 S.Ct. 2002, 52 L.Ed.2d 595.

Statutory re-employment rights for veterans date from the Nation's first peacetime draft law, passed in 1940, which provided that a veteran returning to civilian employment from active duty was entitled to reinstatement to the position that he had left or one of "like seniority, status, and pay." 38 U.S.C. § 2021(a). In 1951, in order to strengthen the Nation's Reserve Forces, Congress extended reinstatement rights to employees returning from training duty. See Pub. L. 51, ch. 144, § 1(s), 65 Stat. 75, 86-87. Thereafter,...