Cite as: 535 U. S. 137 (2002)
Breyer, J., dissenting
nection to the earlier unfair labor practice that might otherwise have justified reinstatement and backpay. Fansteel, supra, at 254-259; Southern S. S. Co., supra, at 47-49.
By way of contrast, the present case concerns a discharge that was not for "good cause." The discharge did not sever any connection with an unfair labor practice. Indeed, the discharge was the unfair labor practice. Hence a determination that backpay was inappropriate in the former circumstances (involving a justifiable discharge) tells us next to nothing about the appropriateness as a legal remedy in the latter (involving an unjustifiable discharge), the circumstances present here.
The Court also refers to the statement in Sure-Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U. S., at 903, that "employees must be deemed 'unavailable' for work (and the accrual of backpay therefore tolled) during any period when they were not lawfully entitled to be present and employed in the United States." The Court, however, does not rely upon this statement as determining its conclusion. See ante, at 146-147. And it is right not to do so. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341 (1979) ("[L]anguage of an opinion" must be "read in context" and not "parsed" like a statute). Sure-Tan involved an order reinstating (with backpay) illegal aliens who had left the country and returned to Mexico. 467 U. S., at 888- 889. In order to collect the backpay to which the order entitled them, the aliens would have had to reenter the country illegally. Consequently, the order itself could not have been enforced without leading to a violation of criminal law. Id., at 903. Nothing in the Court's opinion suggests that the Court intended its statement to reach to circumstances different from and not at issue in Sure-Tan, where an order, such as the order before us, does not require the alien to engage in further illegal behavior.
Finally, the Court cannot reasonably rely upon the award's negative features taken together. The Court summarizes those negative features when it says that the Board "asks
159
Page: Index Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007