discharge
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 328 U.S. 275 - Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp. · 1946Most cited · 1,463 citing opinions
Discharge normally means termination of the employment relationship or loss of a position. In common parlance and in industrial parlance a person who has been laid off by operation of a seniority system and put on a waiting list for reassignment would hardly be considered as having been 'discharged'.
How the Supreme Court has restated “discharge”
Each Supreme Court definition of “discharge,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “discharge”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “discharge” — 1,729 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1865–1948
- ORIGINAL
The discharge mentioned does not import a delivery of the cargo; it only imports its unlading from the ship.
charter-party
To give this one-year 'furlough' any less meaning than the statutory word 'discharge' would result in depriving government employee veterans of the entire congressional guarantee of a year's retention in their old jobs. We hold that the furlough, if applied to veterans, would be a 'discharge' within the meaning of § 8(c).