Just one day after a key filing in his effort to recoup unemployment benefits, Cunningham was struck and killed by a train. In late December, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the state and Wal-Mart were wrong to deny unemployment benefits after Cunningham was fired.

"My dad felt he had been treated unfairly and he wanted to correct that," said his daughter Heidi Schauer. "The decision brought magic back to 2011, and Dad would have been proud of that."

Of the 31,000 judicial decisions involving state unemployment cases last year, 354 were taken to the Appeals Court. Of those, only seven were reversed.

Adding to the unlikelihood of his case, Cunningham was represented pro bono by Justin McCluskey, a law student from a legal aid clinic at William Mitchell College of Law. McCluskey had never argued a case in a courtroom prior to appearing before the state Court of Appeals on behalf of Cunningham.