The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently held that Robert Driscoll—a now-retired Melrose firefighter and member of the Air National Guard—was entitled to pay for up to forty 24-hour shifts per Federal fiscal year missed during his military service. This decision clarifies that G.L. c. 33, §59(a), a local option law, entitles public employees who serve in the Massachusetts National Guard or United States military reserves to receive their full civilian pay for up to 40 days per Federal fiscal year if they miss time for service obligations, including active duty, training, drills, or parades. The statute also provides that “day” means “any 24-hour period regardless of calendar day.” G.L. c. 33, §59(a). In a win for state employees and public employees in municipalities that adopted G.L. c. 33, §59(a), the Court found that a single 24-hour period counts as one day of military service.

Per a collective-bargaining agreement between the Melrose Fire Fighters’ Union, Local 1617, IAFF and the City of Melrose (“City”), firefighters, including Driscoll, worked an eight-day rotation consisting of one day on, one day off, one day on, five days off. The “day on” was a consecutive 24-hour period consisting of one 10-hour day shift and one 14-hour night shift. Employees could use a single day of paid time off (e.g., vacation or sick leave) to cover an absence for the day shift or night shift during a “day on,” but had to use two days of paid time off to cover an absence for an entire 24-shift. During Federal fiscal year 2020, Driscoll missed fifty-six 24-hour shifts; during Federal fiscal year 2021, he missed seventy 24-hour shifts. The City paid him for twenty 24-hour shifts in each Federal fiscal year. Driscoll filed an action for declaratory judgment requesting the court find he was entitled to pay for forty 24-hour shifts in each Federal fiscal year. The City countered that G.L. c. 33, §59(a) only required it to pay Driscoll for his service during “the first 40 consecutive calendar days of an annual tour of duty,” and that a 24-hour shift, consisting of a day shift and a night shift, counted as two days of military leave. Driscoll v. City of Melrose, No. 24-P-1114, slip op. at *4 (Mass. App. Ct., Nov. 21, 2025). The Superior Court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment, agreeing that Driscoll was only entitled to compensation for the time he would have worked during a consecutive 40-day period. Id.

The Appeals Court reversed the lower court’s decision and held that the City had to pay Driscoll for up to forty 24-hour shifts in a Federal fiscal year. It rejected the City’s argument that it only had to pay Driscoll for the first forty consecutive days in any Federal fiscal year, finding that the plain language of the statute “does not impose any requirement that those forty days be consecutive, rather than merely in a single Federal fiscal year.” Id. at 8. The Court observed that “[t]he city’s interpretation requires [it] to add the word ‘consecutive’ to the statute, which is well beyond [its] authority.” Id. It also noted that interpreting the statute to require the forty days to be consecutive would create inequity between public employees on active duty and those fulfilling training obligations while in reserve status: those on reserve status “would exhaust the total forty-day allotment through just twelve weekend days.” Id. at 9.

In addition, the Court rejected the City’s position that each 24-hour “day on” counted as two days of military service. Id. at 11. Again, relying on the plain language of the statute that “day” means “any 24-hour period,” the Court rejected the City’s argument to the contrary and refused to rely on a hearsay statement from a person who assisted in drafting the statute. Id. at 11, 12.
The full text of the Court’s decision can be found here.