Vt. Human Rights
Commission v. State of Vt. Agency of Transportation, 2012 VT
45.
At first glance today’s case appears to be a bit of a
humdrum. One state agency challenges the
other over the precise meaning of particular terms in a statute. It appears to have all the excitement as the one-dollar
wagers that Randolph and
Mortimer Duke used to make. But like
the Dukes’ wagers, the real story of today’s case is how the meaning of such words
impacts the lives of those around the agencies.
There is more going on here than frozen orange juice futures.
What is at stake is vacation time.
Under 21 V.S.A. § 472 of the Vermont Parental and Family
Leave Act, an employee may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from his or her
job for either the birth/care of a child or to attend to an ill family member. During that time, the employee gets to keep
his or her job and any accrued seniority. More importantly under subsection (c), the “employer
shall continue employment benefits for the duration of the leave at the level
and under the conditions coverage would be provided if the employee continued
in employment continuously for the duration of the leave.”
For years, the Attorney General’s Office and the Vermont Human Rights Commission has shared
the opinion that the term “benefits” includes not only health insurance but the
accumulation of paid vacation and sick days.
If you earn vacation and sick time throughout the course of the work
year, your unpaid leave-time will be credited toward the accumulation of such
paid leave-time. This opinion has
persuaded (some
might say forced) many a private employer to credit their employee with
time-off earned during his or her time-off.
All of this changed when the individual Plaintiff in this
case, took an unpaid parental leave from her job with the State’s Agency of
Transportation in 2007. Upon her return,
she was told that the Agency would not credit any of her parental leave toward
her accrued vacation/sick time. Upset,
Plaintiff contacted the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which consistent with
it former opinion, agreed that Section 472(c)’s benefits included accrued leave
and filed suit on her behalf against the Agency.
Imagine the Commission’s surprise when its former
comrade-in-opinion, the Attorney General, showed up on the other side
contending that 472(c) was never intended to cover such benefits as accrued
leave.
As Emerson says, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds.”
Both sides agreed to the facts and sought a determination
from the trial court. It sided with the
Agency and Attorney General. The
Commission and Plaintiff appealed, and the entire matter was taken on appeal.
The question for the SCOV is a basic one. What does the term “benefits” mean? The SCOV’s analysis is straight-down-the-line
statutory construction.
First, the term is not defined in a particular manner. So the SCOV applies the plain ordinary
meaning of the word. Since this does not
move the question much further, the SCOV refers to a “canons of construction”
for assistance. These are rules that
courts have developed over the years to help them determine meaning without imposing
a willy-nilly “how-does-your-honor-feel-today” analysis.
The SCOV uses the canon of noscitur a sociis, which translates roughly to “it is known by its
associates.” All the cool canons have
either Latin or old French names. That’s
why jurists and logicians are so popular at singles bars. Basically, it means that the SCOV scours
through the statute to see if the surrounding terms and context shed light on
the legislature’s purpose. Is this term
used in a particular way? Does the statue
address pay and similar remuneration in a different way from health care and
other benefit programs?
From the surrounding context and language of Section 472,
the SCOV determines that the legislature did not intend a more expansive
reading of the word “benefits,” and intended the section only to cover those
on-going coverage benefit programs, such as health, dental, or life insurance
that the State provides as part of the on-going employment package (regardless
of specific remuneration levels).
Particularly telling is the sentence in Section 472 that
follows the one quoted above. It says
that the employers “may require that the employee contribute to the cost of the
benefits during the leave at the existing rate of employee contribution.” Such contribution language clarifies for the
SCOV that the legislature did not intend to extend the on-the-job benefits—such
as paid time-off—which are automatically awarded as the work is performed.
This does not benefit Plaintiff who essentially loses a
benefit that she once enjoyed and likely budgeted as part of her family’s
resources.
Could the SCOV have come out differently on this one? It is quite possible. Whenever a court brings out a canon of construction
it is because there is more than one plausible way to read the statute and
nothing augers in strong favor of one meaning over the other.
The canons do not provide answers to questions of
legislative intent. Their sole function
is to guide the court in a constant manner toward the more-favored
interpretation. In this sense, a canon
of construction will not necessarily produce the same result each time it is
applied. Rather, it guarantees that any
analysis will adhere to certain, broader principles and that the result will be
justified on solid structure of reasoning.
This simply illustrates the fact that we have known since Montaigne.
Constancy is not the same thing as consistency.
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