Opinion

Wimberly v. Labor & Industrial Relations Commission of Missouri

  • 688 S.W.2d 344
Court
Supreme Court of Missouri
Filed
Apr 30, 1985
Status
Published
Author
Donnelly
On the bench
Welliver, Higgins, Rendlen, Donnelly, Blackmar, Billings, Gunn
Cited by
22 cases
Authority
More cited than 8.0%

Superseded by statute, as recognized in Smith v. Dixie Fuel Co.

claimant left work on a maternity leave without a guarantee of reemployment at the end of the leave period

How later courts described this case

  • claimant left work on a maternity leave without a guarantee of reemployment at the end of the leave period
  • "Missouri courts have interpreted this provision to disqualify claimants who quit their job on account of pregnancy or personal illness unrelated to the employment.”

Written by the judges who cited it.

Later courts went against this

  • Superseded by statute, as recognized in Smith v. Dixie Fuel Co.

    688 S.W.2d 344, at 348 (Ky. 1985), superseded by statute as stated in Smith v. Dixie Fuel Company, 900 S.W.2d 609
    Kentucky Supreme CourtJul 6, 1995by statutemedium confidenceRead it

The opinion

DONNELLY, Judge,

concurring in result.

Although we may be bound to follow the United States Supreme Court’s decisions concerning federal statutes as involving uniquely federal questions, see Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 174 , 69 S.Ct. 1018, 1026 , 93 L.Ed. 1282 (1949), in my view we are not so bound as to its pronouncements regarding the United States Constitution.

This is contrary to the views I expressed in 1972 and 1973. See Rodgers v. Danforth, 486 S.W.2d 258, 259 (Mo. banc 1972), and Kraus v. Board of Education of City of Jennings, 492 S.W.2d 783, 784 (Mo.1973). There I mistakenly accepted the assertion in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 , 78 S.Ct. 1401 , 3 L.Ed.2d 5 (1958), that the United States Supreme Court’s interpretations of the written Constitution constitute the “supreme law of the land” under Article VI of the Constitution and are of binding effect on the states. I have since concluded that the Cooper assertion is no more than a postulate. See A. Bickel, The Morality of Consent 101-102 (1975); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 22 (1978); Caine, Judicial Review — Democracy Versus Constitutionality, 56 Temple L.Q. 297 (1983); Donnelly, The State of the Judiciary in Missouri-1982, 3 St. Louis U.Pub.L. Forum 101 (1983). Decisions by the United State Supreme Court in all cases arising under the Constitution should be “binding, in any case, [only] upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit * * A. Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

I concur only in the result.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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