seniority
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 337 U.S. 521 - Aeronautical Industrial District Lodge 727 v. Campbell · 1949Most cited · 377 citing opinions
In providing that a veteran shall be restored to the position he had before he entered the military service 'without loss of seniority,' § 8 of the Act uses the term 'seniority' without definition. It is thus apparent that Congress was not creating a system of seniority but recognizing its operation as part of the process of collective bargaining. We must therefore look to the conventional uses of the seniority system in the process of collective bargaining in order to determine the rights of seniority which the Selective Service Act guaranteed the veteran. Barring legislation not here involved, seniority rights derive their scope and significance from union contracts, confined as they almost exclusively are to unionized industry.
How often courts cite the cases defining “seniority”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “seniority” — 672 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 2 definitions, chronological · 1949–1966
The term 'seniority' is not to be limited by a narrow, technical definition but must be given a meaning that is consonant with the intention of Congress as expressed in the 1940 Act. That intention was to preserve for the returning veterans the rights and benefits which would have automatically accrued to them had they remained in private employment rather than responding to the call of their country.