David Hackett Souter, King v. St. Vincent's Hospital…
“ We may grant that the congressionally mandated leave of absence can be an ungainly perquisite of military service, when the tour of duty lasts as long as King's promises to do, and if we were free to tinker with the statutory scheme we could reasonably accord some significance to the burdens imposed on both employers and workers when long leaves of absence are the chosen means of guaranteeing eventual reemployment to military personnel. ”
David Hackett Souter, King v. St. Vincent's Hospital…
“ Enlistees and those entering active duty in response to an order or call come next with protection so long as their tours of duty do not exceed five years; [12] and at what the hospital claims to be "the bottom of the employment rights scheme," Brief for Respondent 16, fall the reemployment rights protected by § 2024 (d) . Ibid. It is not unnatural, on this view, that the least protected veterans should be subject to an imprecise limit of reasonableness on the length of voluntary duty giving rise to their job protection. ”
David Hackett Souter, King v. St. Vincent's Hospital…
“ But differences do not necessarily make hierarchies, and the differences revealed by the hospital's examples do not point inexorably downward without assuming the point at issue, that the reservists subject to training duty within the meaning of subsection (d) really do get less protection than inductees, enlistees, and so on, covered by other provisions. Without such an assumption there are simply differences of treatment, to be respected by limiting protection where the text contains a limit and leaving textually unlimited protection just where the Congress apparently chose to leave it. ”
