Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-480_b97c.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

§101(19) (“status as a member”); 10 U. S. C. §723(a) (“em-
ploy[ment] in” a “capacity”).  But these scattered provisions 
do not create the kind of “stark contrast” that might counsel
adoption of a meaning other than the most natural one.  Cf. 
Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U. S. 586, 595 (2010).  At most, they 
illustrate that Congress has employed several variations on 
the same theme to distinguish between service in different 
capacities.

More importantly, though, Babcock’s functional test is in-
consistent with the choices that Congress made in the stat-
utory scheme.  Determining whether Babcock’s technician 
employment  was  service  “as”  a  member  of  the  National 
Guard  does  not  turn  on  factors  like  whether  he  wore  his 
uniform to work.  It turns on how Congress classified the 
job—and as already discussed, Congress classified dual-sta-
tus  technicians  as  “civilian.”  Babcock  dismisses  that  dis-
tinction  as  one  drawn  for  purposes  of  “administrative
bookkeeping,”  but  bookkeeping  matters  when  it  comes  to 
pay and benefits. 

* 

* 
Babcock’s civil-service pension payments fall outside the
Social Security Act’s uniformed-services exception because 
they are based on service in his civilian capacity.  We there-
fore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 

* 

It is so ordered.