Barila Unemployment Compensation Case
Barila Unemployment Compensation Case
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting Opinion by
The key clause here is that “wages earned by a full-time day student in temporary employment during holidays or periods of vacation . . . shall not be considered base-year wages” under the act and the key word for the situation before us is the word “temporary” in that
The majority opinion indicates that all vacation employment of full-time day students is by its very nature temporary. This makes the word “temporary” in the amendment wholly superfluous, and we must assume that the legislature must have inserted it gratuitously for unnecessary emphasis. It is a cardinal rule of construction that legislative prodigality of the verbal type is never presumed, and an interpretation giving any word of the legislature no meaning is to be avoided if there is any reasonable way to do so. I think we may be presuming if we conclude that the legislature, in inserting the word “temporary”, could not have had in mind the situation before ns, which apparently is representative of what may arise not infrequently in the interaction of union contracts with the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an unemployment compensation case in which the Bureau of Employment Security held the claimant to be ineligible for benefits under the provisions of §404 of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 PS §804, on the ground that he had insufficient earnings in his base year.
The Bureau deleted all earnings of the claimant, while he was a full-time student, earned in temporary employment during periods of vacation. The referee,
This decision was vacated by the board itself and the case reopened, argued, and the entire record reviewed by the board en banc, after which the referee’s decision was reversed and the claimant denied benefits.
The claimant, Francis R. Barila, was last employed as a millwright helper by the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, Creighton, Pennsylvania, on March 13, 1960. He had been so employed intermittently for approximately ten years. He applied for a leave of absence to attend college under the provisions of the GI bill of rights. He was enrolled as a full-time day student at Duquesne University and attended that college from February, 1956 to January 28, 1960. ITe had temporary employment with the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company from June 1, 1958, to September 22, 1958 and from June 3, 1959 to September 22, 1959. These periods of employment were during college vacations.
An examination of §401 of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 PS §801 and §404 of the Unemployment Compensation Law, 43 PS §804, and the application of the benefit and wage formulae therein set forth, clearly demonstrates that whether this claimant is entitled to benefits is determined by the inclusion or deletion of the vacation wages.
The claimant’s base year was from October 1, 1958 through September 30, 1959; it consisted of the fourth quarter of 1958, and the first, second and third quarters of 1959. The wages deleted were $109.09 in the fourth quarter of 1958; $203.12 in the second quarter of 1959 and $1411.65 in the third quarter of 1959.
Section 401(a) (2) was added to section 401, supra, by amendment, 1959, December 17, P. L. 1893, §7, 43
The effective date of this amendment was January 1, 1960, and applies to any claimant filing an application subsequent to that date. The claimant’s last day of work was March 13, 1960 and his application for benefits had an effective date of March 14, 1960, so that he is bound by the requirements of the amendment even though the procedural measuring stick for determining base year earnings was for a period prior to the effective date of the act.
The claimant contends that he was a regular full-time employe of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and was only on leave of absence to attend Duquesne University, so that his vacation wages were not earned in temporary employment but in employment as a full-time employee. His signed statement is as follows: “For 4 years from February 1956 through January, 1960, I was attending Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Monday through Friday — full time school. I am an employee at Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and during the period above I had been on a leave of absence from the Company. I only worked during the summer vacation.” The board was clearly justified under this record in finding that the questioned wages of this claimant, who had admittedly been a full-time student for four years, earned in his college vacation periods, was the kind of temporary employment contemplated by the act.
Evidently the legislature wanted to make its intention concerning student vacation employment to be crystal clear and the amendment of 1959 leaves no doubt that wages so earned by a full-time day student during periods of vacation is temporary employment and cannot be considered base year earnings. The fact that the vacation wages were earned in temporary employment is not changed by the fact that the employer-employee relationship continued in existence by a leave of absence.
Decision affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.