Opinion ID: 405227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Deposition Testimony

Text: 9 The depositions of Lingelbach and Turner were taken in October, 1978, by telephone. It is this deposition testimony that gives rise to Bunch's claims on appeal before this court.
10 At the time Lingelbach was deposed, he had not recently reviewed all the documentation involved in the selection of Casson over Bunch. Lingelbach Deposition at 6. While he had a general recall of the selection, over five years had elapsed since the selection had been made. See id. at 5-6. During the deposition, Lingelbach gave the following responses to questions from Bunch's counsel: 11 Q In this particular case, as I understand it from Mr. Turner, the feeling was that both the applicants were well qualified or very well qualified in terms of their flying backgrounds and experience and so on; is that correct, to your recollection? 12 A To my recollection, their flying time and so forth was comparable, yes. 13 Q And their qualifications in the unit air craft? 14 A Yes. 15 Q So what we're left with is-there are three things that are listed: their age, education, and retainability. Is that an accurate statement: those are the three factors that distinguished the two candidates? 16 A Those would be three but there are others. I'm sure that in looking at all the factors involved, we decided the most important; certainly those three would be key factors. 17 Q There may have been some others that weren't as important as those three? 18 A Yes. 19 Id. at 11-12. 20 Q You indicated that your primary concern was with this whole-man concept. Isn't that really just another way of saying you want to get the best person you can for the job, taking into account all the factors that influence a person's performance? 21 A I think that's a succinct summary of the definition of that word. In other words, we're looking at the whole-man, and we are interested in getting the best qualified person, and when you think of this in terms of the fact that our defense posture depends very heavily on the reverse side of it, this is probably even more critical than would might appear. 22 Q And you also said, I think, that in this particular case that you were applying the whole-man concept, and there were no single factor(s) that was the primary factor in determining that Casson would be hired instead of Bunch, rather the big picture, I believe. 23 A Yes. There was no prejudice that relates to anyone of these factors that relates to either one of the individuals. We look at the total thing as we would do on an awful lot of these in the course of the year, and based upon personnel and technical judgments, decide which man fits best. 24 Q So, you're saying, I guess, that really education by itself would not have been a determining factor necessarily, and retainability by itself might not have, and age by itself might not have been, but taking all of these factors together, plus what other ones were mentioned in the letter, taking them all together as the determining factor; is that correct? 25 A That's right, taking all the factors and, of course, realizing that each one of those is a very general term that is very broad.... 26 Id. at 27-29. 27 Lingelbach also testified that Casson was chosen for the ART position because he was better qualified on an overall basis: 28 Q In this particular case, other than the letter of April 13, 1973, was there any one single factor that made Captain Casson more desirable to the ART program than Major Bunch, in AFRES' view? 29 A Looking at it in terms of what I have before me and my recollection, which, as you said, because of time is so far back, it was just the judgment of the staff activities involved in the determination that from an overall standpoint, using, again, the total man-concept which incorporates a big picture: today, as well as tomorrow, in terms of potential that the Captain (Casson) was better qualified. There was no single factor that singled it out. 30 Id. at 26.
31 Turner had reviewed material concerning the Casson selection over Bunch shortly before he gave his telephonic deposition. Turner Deposition at 5-6. Turner was asked to explain the letter sent to Bunch informing him that he had not been selected: 32 Q All right. Now, in that memorandum or letter, there's a mention made of the reasons why Mr. Casson was selected, and it talks about the whole man qualification criteria. 33 A Yeah. You have to state it again. 34 Q Okay. In that memorandum or letter, reasons are given why Mr. Casson was selected instead of Mr. Bunch, and it talks about the whole-man qualifications criteria. 35 A Mm-hmm. 36 Q And then it lists a number of factors that are called merit factors. Nothing is mentioned in there about the OER's, and I wonder if you can explain why it isn't mentioned, if you know? 37 A Well, I don't know except normally, you know, it was not mentioned. We never did mention; still don't today. Never have as far as I know mentioned the type of records that are reviewed in reaching a conclusion like that because it was based on not just OER's. It was based on several different things, and a lot of those-is that 13 April? 38 Q That's correct. 39 A Yeah. I have that here. 40 Q Fine. 41 A There's a lot of things that are listed there that, of course, weren't considered, you know. We looked at the total Military Personal Records which also contains the pictures. We had verbal conversations that took place and there were numerous runs (sic) of those. 42 Q You're going to have to slow down a little bit, too. Sorry. I will keep reminding you. 43 (Discussion off the record.) 44 Q (By Mr. Moen (Appellant's attorney) ) You have that in front of you? Let me ask you a couple questions about that if I may since that is a fairly important letter. 45 A Okay. 46 Q Why would you not indicate the other factors that were taken into account? Would they be less important than the ones that are listed? 47 A Not necessarily. It's kind of a difficult question to answer. 48 Q But in any event, as a normal matter, you would list some of the factors in your decision and not other factors? 49 A It's hard to know what these were because there's a lot of mental processes that went through that period of time as they are still today on selecting anybody. I think what we did here was kind of wrapped everything into oneQ Mm-hmm. 50 A -because we had said in our regulations, there are certain records that are reviewed at Headquarters that are not available to the local field units, and the letter-I notice that we mentioned in paragraph two the application- 51 Q Yes. 52 A -and there we consider the application to be not only the standard 171 which is the thing the guy filled out, but also his copy of flying time, his Military Personal record, voucher from previous supervisors, that kind of thing. 53 Q Mm-hmm. 54 A So we just kind of use the word application for an all inclusive thing, and it was in the selection process. 55 Id. at 26-29. 56 Turner testified that the retainability of both candidates was an important consideration in the decision, id. at 44, and that age was considered in relationship to retainability. Id. at 48. Turner also stated that he was aware Casson's OER's were higher than Bunch's OER's. Id. at 47. Turner could not, however, identify any one factor that was more important than any of the others in the selection of Casson. Id. at 44. 57 Neither Turner nor Lingelbach was asked what weight was given to any specific factor.