Opinion ID: 371795
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: voiding the pass over

Text: 19 The Air Force next asserts error in the district court's holding that the Correction Board was arbitrary and capricious in refusing to void the pass over and to afford Johnson reconsideration by a new selection board supplied with his corrected record. 20 This situation is not one in which the armed forces found no error in the officer's record. See Mindes v. Seaman, 453 F.2d 197 (5th Cir. 1971), After remand, 501 F.2d 175 (5th Cir. 1974). Cf. Reid v. United States, No. 446-74 (Ct. Cl. Sept. 28, 1979); Duggan v. United States, No. 153-76 (Ct. Cl. Aug. 31, 1979) (OPRRB and Correction Board refused to void some contested OERs). The other administrative boards, to which the Correction Board requires application, agreed to partially expunge the Training Report comment and to alter the transfer date on the Letter of Evaluation. Nor is this case one in which the Air Force has admitted error, the Correction Board has implemented a full remedy, and the officer has challenged the power of the Air Force to act. Cf. Jones v. Alexander, No. 77-2337, 609 F.2d 778 (5th Cir. 1980) (challenging Army's power to remedy defect in composition of selection board). The cornerstone of Johnson's case is that the Air Force did have the power to act and improperly failed to do so. In Johnson's action the administrative scions of the Air Force agreed that a cleaning of Johnson's selection folder was warranted, but they failed to permit that cleansing to have any effect on Johnson's career. 21 Johnson's case fits into a pattern of military pay cases evolving in the Court of Claims. The determination of whether the armed forces acted arbitrarily and capriciously is broken into two stages. The first stage covers the controversy over whether the administrative board should have expunged some part of the officer's promotion file. The statutes require the selection board to consider a record that fairly and equitably reflects the officer's career.10 U.S.C. §§ 3442(c), 8442(c) (1976). For a promotion board's selection to be proper, it must have before it a substantially complete and fair record. E. g., Weiss v. United States, 408 F.2d 416, 187 Ct. Cl. 1 (1969). If the administrative body refuses to excise the contested portion, at trial the plaintiff must rebut with clear, cogent, and convincing evidence the presumption that the board acted legally. E. g., Reid v. United States, No. 446-74 (Ct. Cl. Sept. 28, 1979); Skinner v. United States, 594 F.2d 824 (Ct. Cl.1979); Sanders v. United States, 594 F.2d 804 (Ct. Cl.1979). See Mindes v. Seaman, 453 F.2d 197 (5th Cir. 1971), After remand, 501 F.2d 175 (5th Cir. 1974). Johnson is not faced with this presumption because the Air Force itself, through the OPRRB, cleansed Johnson's record of the offending phrase. The second stage is reached once the contested portion of the selection file is removed. The question at this stage is whether the Correction Board was arbitrary and capricious in failing to void a pass over by a selection board, since the selection board had improper information before it. 22 In Sanders v. United States, and in this action, the Air Force has urged a but for test as the standard in this second stage for deciding whether the pass over should be voided. The Air Force would require the officer to prove that but for the existence of the now deleted information, the selection board would have recommended the plaintiff for promotion. The Court of Claims has rejected the but for test. Sanders v. United States, 594 F.2d at 817. Focusing on the language of the Correction Board's enabling statute, the Court of Claims noted that the board is charged with correcting Probable Errors or injustices; a but for test in effect would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer would have been promoted. The Sanders court rejected the test as an attempt to turn courts and correction boards into super-selection boards, deciding issues of promotability. Id. at 816. See also Riley v. United States, 608 F.2d 441 (Ct. Cl.1979). The court also suggested that if a but for test were adopted, the proper placing of the burden of proof would be on the defendant. 594 F.2d at 815-16. The defendant creates the uncertainty by improperly including information in the file; the defendant raises barriers to proof by keeping selection board proceedings secret and by routinely destroying its records. Further difficulties of proof are inherent in the selection board system: no two successive boards include the same members, the board applies a whole person standard that makes it difficult to ascertain what weight is given to any one document, and the increased competition within the armed forces gives the promotion system, as one judge put it, the aura of a lottery. Id. at 821 (Nichols, J., concurring). For these reasons the Court of Claims rejected the but for test. 23 The Court of Claims did, however, establish a standard for harmless error to avoid windfall recoveries. The court stated that under extraordinary circumstances when the error or injustice was truly harmless, that is, when substantial evidence shows that it was unlikely that the officer would have been promoted in any event, the pass over should not be voided and the officer should not recover. Id. at 818. The court cautioned, however, that this substantial evidence test should not be construed as a rewording of the stricter but for test. 24 The Court of Claims' logic is persuasive. Applying this framework to Johnson's case, we are not convinced that the district court was incorrect in holding that the Correction Board acted arbitrarily and capriciously in failing to void the pass over. The record does not reflect substantial evidence that it was unlikely that Johnson would have been promoted. Proof was not introduced to show whether Johnson was well below the cutoff point for promotion. 4 Cf. Reid v. United States, No. 446-74 (Ct. Cl. Sept. 28, 1979) (plaintiff was four points below promotion cutoff). This case is not one in which the officer's record is worsened by the removal of the contested item. Cf. Reid v. United States, No. 446-74 (Ct. Cl. Sept. 28, 1979); Duggan v. United States, No. 153-76 (Ct. Cl. Aug. 31, 1979) (voided OERs would have improved overall average or reflected recent improvement). Nor is this case one in which the Air Force Correction Board submitted Johnson's corrected folder to a Standby Advisory Board to reenact the original selection process and support its proposition that Johnson would not have been promoted. Cf. Knehans v. Alexander, 184 U.S.App.D.C 420, 566 F.2d 312 (D.C.Cir.1977), Cert. denied, 435 U.S. 995, 98 S.Ct. 1646, 56 L.Ed.2d 83 (1978). (Standby Advisory Board utilized). The only statement in the record which supports the Air Force's position is that of Lt. Colonel Smith, but his memorandum seems to apply the but for test; it requires Johnson to show that the offending parts of the record solely account for his failure to be recommended for promotion. 5 Smith did not in any way substantiate his belief that the selection board results would not be any different. In addition, the inherent differences between successive selection boards, as noted above, cause a built-in variance that complicates proving the likelihood of promotion. The type of evidence needed to prove the likelihood is peculiarly within the reach of the Air force. The Air Force simply has not met its burden here. The district court could well have found the evidence in Johnson's favor to be persuasive. Few statements about a pilot could be more prejudicial than to declare that he cannot fly a plane. 6 When the top document in a selection file contains such a blot on the officer's record and is post-dated to cover approximately twice as much time as is customarily allowed for PIT, it is not hard to agree with the district court that the statement is prejudicial and that Johnson should have been afforded a fresh review of his corrected record. 25 The Air Force also asserts that the mere failing of the PIT course was enough to cause Johnson's nonselection for promotion. This argument is merely a reincarnation of the harmless error theory and the Air Force submitted no substantive evidence to show that this failure would cause a pass over. Actually, the Air Force's stress on its whole person concept, under which no individual document is the sole criterion for promotion, would seem to preclude this argument. 7 26 The Air Force itself began grinding the remedial wheels when it partially corrected Johnson's selection folder. The Air Force acted arbitrarily and capriciously in failing to void the second pass over. The error was not harmless because the record does not reflect substantial evidence that it was unlikely that Johnson would be promoted. We affirm the district court.