Opinion ID: 151168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: ARTs

Text: Following the Court's approach in Fisher, at issue is whether an ART constitutes a civilian employee or a member of the armed forces. See Fisher, 249 F.3d at 438. ARTs are defined as: Full-time civilian employees who are also members of the Air Force Reserve unit in which they are employed. In addition to their civilian assignments, they are assigned to equivalent positions in the Reserve organization with a Reserve military rank or grade. ARTs must maintain active membership in their Reserve unit of assignment and satisfactory participation in order to keep their ART position. (R. at 114, Air Force Instruction 36-108, Air Reserve Technician (ART) Program (July 29, 1994), Attachment 1, at 5.) The ART and National Guard technician positions are both subject to 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(1), which provides: For purposes of this section and any other provision of law, a military technician (dual status) is a Federal civilian employee who (A) is employed under section 3101 of title 5 or section 709(b) of title 32; (B) is required as a condition of that employment to maintain membership in the Selected Reserve; and (C) is assigned to a civilian position as a technician in the organizing, administering, instructing, or training of the Selected Reserve or in the maintenance and repair of supplies or equipment issued to the Selected Reserve or the armed forces. Id. The position of National Guard technician has a different history than the ART position. Congress enacted the National Guard Technicians Act of 1968, as amended, 32 U.S.C. § 709, to regulate National Guard technicians, whereas the ART position is subject to the general employment authority of the military departments in 5 U.S.C. § 3101. One of the authorities cited by the district court in Leistiko for the proposition that a National Guard technician position is irreducibly military in nature examined the intent of Congress in defining that position, as set forth in the National Guard Technicians Act. See Wright v. Park, 5 F.3d 586 (1st Cir.1993). That analysis is summarized as follows: Appellant, who remains a colonel in the [Air National Guard], argues strenuously that, for purposes of this case, his civilian status may be disentangled from his military status, and that he should be free to sue for discrimination implicating the former. But this balkanization of technicians' work is belied by Congress's description of the functions that ANG technicians serve, by the unmistakable intendment of the Technician Act (the statute that Congress enacted in 1968 to regulate such personnel), and by the resulting ties that bind technicians' civilian and military roles. [T]he Technician Act evidences Congress's intention that technicians, while retaining their positions as civil employees outside the competitive civil service, will serve simultaneously as employees of the appropriate military department, subject to its regulation. It is axiomatic that the National Guard is military in character.... We think it follows that technicians are martial in character. Indeed, under the Technician Act's composite regime, technicians are considerably more than nominal members of the military establishment.... Because National Guard technicians serve as the Guard's support staff and are, in fact, those whose job it is to maintain and assure the Guard's strength and organization, they are indispensable to this nation's defense. See, e.g., 32 U.S.C. § 709(a) (assigning to technicians such distinctively military tasks as (1) the administration and training of the National Guard; and (2) the maintenance and repair of supplies issued to the National Guard or the armed forces).... [S]ince National Guard technicians' positions are encompassed within a military organization and require the performance of work directly related to national defense, such positions are themselves military in nature. Id. at 588-89 (emphasis added). The reasoning in Wright readily applies to the ART position. Like National Guard technicians, ARTs are encompassed within a military organization and require the performance of work directly related to national defense. The functions performed by ARTs and National Guard technicians, as described in the applicable statutes, are substantially the same. The distinctively military tasks noted by Wright in the National Guard Technicians Act, 32 U.S.C. § 709(a)(1)-(2), are duplicated in 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(1)(C), where they are applicable to both National Guard technicians and ARTs. See id. (indicating that dual status technicians, including ARTs employed under 5 U.S.C. § 3101 and National Guard technicians employed under 32 U.S.C. § 709(b), may be assigned to organizing, administering, instructing, or training of the Selected Reserve or in the maintenance and repair of supplies or equipment issued to the Selected Reserve or the armed forces). The National Guard Technicians Act also provides that National Guard technicians may be called to perform the following additional duties: (A) Support of operations or missions undertaken by the technician's unit at the request of the President or the Secretary of Defense. (B) Support of Federal training operations or Federal training missions assigned in whole or in part to the technician's unit. (C) Instructing or training in the United States or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or possessions of the United States of (i) active-duty members of the armed forces; (ii) members of foreign military forces (under the same authorities and restrictions applicable to active-duty members providing such instruction or training); (iii) Department of Defense contractor personnel; or (iv) Department of Defense civilian employees. 32 U.S.C. § 709(a)(3). Similarly, 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(3) provides that dual status technicians employed under 5 U.S.C. § 3101 may be assigned the following additional duties: (A) Supporting operations or missions assigned in whole or in part to the technician's unit. (B) Supporting operations or missions performed or to be performed by (i) a unit composed of elements from more than one component of the technician's armed force; or (ii) a joint forces unit that includes (I) one or more units of the technician's component; or (II) a member of the technician's component whose reserve component assignment is in a position in an element of the joint forces unit. (C) Instructing or training in the United States or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or possessions of the United States of (i) active-duty members of the armed forces; (ii) members of foreign military forces (under the same authorities and restrictions applicable to active-duty members providing such instruction or training); (iii) Department of Defense contractor personnel; or (iv) Department of Defense civilian employees. 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(3). Furthermore, ARTs fulfill a uniquely military function, even in their civilian capacity, to ensure the combat readiness of the reserve units in which they are employed: The ART workforce provides stable, continuous full-time management, administration, and training of the Ready Reserve and oversees the transition from peacetime to a wartime or national emergency situation to ensure mobilization readiness is maintained. ARTs train reservists, provide continuity within the Reserve unit of assignment, and support the unit's gaining major command. (R. at 110, Air Force Instruction 36-108 (July 26, 1994).); see 10 U.S.C. § 10216(d)(1) (requiring ARTs and other dual status technicians to maintain membership in the unit in which they are employed or that they are employed to support). The history of the ART position provides additional context: In a letter dated June 25, 1957, the Civil Service Commission (CSC) authorized the Air Force to proceed with its Air Reserve Technician plan (hereinafter ART). The primary goal of the plan was to increase the combat readiness of Air Force Reserve units, as well as their effectiveness in the event of mobilization. Prior to ART, the Air Reserve Flying Centers utilized for training Air Reserve Wings were maintained and operated by Air Force units which were composed of approximately half military and half civilian personnel and were organizationally separate from the reserve wings. ART, by replacing military support personnel with civil servants and requiring civilian support personnel to be active reserve members, in effect integrated the support organizations into the Air Reserve Wings. In their civilian capacity, ART incumbents were to provide the basic maintenance and supply functions previously provided by the support organization; in their military capacity, ART employees were to provide training for the remainder of the wing personnel, who reported only on weekends and during summer active duty tours. Since this hard core of highly skilled reservists would be available for immediate mobilization, the Air Force anticipated that combat readiness would be enhanced. Am. Fed'n of Gov't Employees v. Hoffman, 543 F.2d 930, 932-33 (D.C.Cir.1976). Hoffman explains the importance of dual status technicians to ensuring the combat readiness of their unit: Technicians are an integral part of the Army Reserve and they possess certain skills essential to the unit if it should be called to active duty. Since the transition from a Reserve status to active duty is critical, dual status personnel, who have been working for the unit and are familiar with unit administrative requirements are employed when the unit is mobilized to enable the critical functions to be performed effectively. When a substitute must replace a technician who does not accompany his unit, the function performed will suffer in some degree. Id. at 939. In other words, an ART is not merely a civilian employee that occupies a separate military position in the reserve forces. Instead, the ART's civilian duties and military role are intricately entwined. The civilian aspect of the ART position exists to serve the ART's military role and the military capacity of the ART's unit. It follows, then, that an adverse personnel decision regarding an ART, even if that decision is related solely to the ART's nominally civilian role, necessarily implicates the ART's military role and function. Cf. Wright v. Park, 5 F.3d 586, 589 (1st Cir.1993) (observing that because the [National Guard] technician's several roles are inextricably intertwined, it follows that the adverse employment action ... necessarily implicates his military as well as his civilian status.). Bowers contends that the district court should have considered that, unlike National Guard technicians, ARTs are not required to wear uniforms while performing their civilian duties, ARTs are subject to civil service laws and regulations applicable to the competitive civil service, and ARTs receive separate military and civilian pay. See Hoffman, 543 F.2d at 933 n. 3, 942-43 (noting that the CSC has provided for separation of ART employees' civilian and military functions to the extent practicable). Bowers argues that the uniform requirement is an important distinction because the EEOC regulations implementing Title VII specifically exclude  [u]niformed members of the military departments. 29 C.F.R. § 1614.103(d)(1) (emphasis added). However, the Court interprets the EEOC regulations to refer to the nature of the position rather than an individual's state of dress. There is no dispute that ARTs are uniformed members of the military departments in their capacity as members of the reserve forces. See Roper v. Dep't of Army, 832 F.2d 247, 248 (2d Cir.1987) (determining that Title VII does not apply to a member of the Army Reserve). Notwithstanding the benefits of civilian status that are enjoyed by ARTs, but not National Guard technicians, including the absence of a statutory requirement to wear a uniform when performing civilian duties, and the protections available to employees of the competitive civil service, ARTs hold a military rank in a military organization and perform work that is essential to the military capacity of that organization. See 10 U.S.C. § 10216. The distinctions identified by Bowers do not materially diminish the military nature of the relationship between an ART and the unit that she is employed to support, or the irreducibly military nature of the ART position as a whole. Bowers cites McGinnis v. United States Air Force, 266 F.Supp.2d 748 (S.D.Ohio 2003), as evidence that there is nothing intrinsically military about the Logistics Management Specialist position. In that case, individuals that had been employed by the United States Air Force as Logistics Management Specialists alleged that the Air Force had engaged in discriminatory practices in violation of Title VII. Id. However, the court discussed the plaintiffs' claims without examining whether they might be barred because of the military status of the plaintiffs. Moreover, there is no indication that the plaintiffs in McGinnis were anything other than strictly civilian employees of the Air Force. Whatever may be the case for other types of military technicians, dual status technicians are assigned a military rank and serve a distinctly military role in the units that they support. See 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a), (d). When this Court reiterated in Fisher that the capacity of a National Guard technician is irreducibly military in nature, it did not question whether the particular tasks performed by the plaintiff in that case, an Accounting Technician, were more or less intrinsically military; instead, it held that the position of National Guard technician, as a whole, is irreducibly military in nature. See Fisher v. Peters, 249 F.3d 433, 443 (6th Cir.2001). The Court's determination is supported by the case law. Though other circuits take a different approach to Title VII claims by dual status technicians, they have consistently identified a military nexus sufficient to bar such claims. See, e.g., Williams v. Wynne, 533 F.3d 360, 368 (5th Cir.2008) (ART tested positive for cocaine use while on military status and the decision to discharge him as a result was, therefore, a military personnel management decision); Walch v. Adjutant Gen.'s Dep't of Tex., 533 F.3d 289, 292 (5th Cir. 2008) (National Guard technician discharged from his military position in the Texas Air National Guard); Willis v. Roche, 256 Fed.Appx. 534, 537 (3d Cir. 2007) (ART challenged conduct by an officer supervising him in both his military and civilian capacities); Overton v. N.Y. State Div. of Military & Naval Affairs, 373 F.3d 83, 96 (2d Cir.2004) (National Guard technician alleged misconduct by his supervisor, who was his immediate military superior, occurring while plaintiff was working on a military base, in military uniform, to ensure the military's airlift capacity); Luckett v. Bure, 290 F.3d 493, 499 (2d Cir.2002) (dual status technician transferred out of his position in the reserve forces by his military supervisors); Brown v. United States, 227 F.3d 295, 299 (5th Cir.2000) (ART discharged for failure to maintain his position in the reserve forces); Hupp v. U.S. Dep't of the Army, 144 F.3d 1144, 1148 (8th Cir.1998) (plaintiff denied a National Guard technician position through an application process involving consideration of military qualifications); Mier v. Owens, 57 F.3d 747, 748 (9th Cir. 1995) (National Guard technician failed to receive a military promotion). Even under the tests used in other circuits, Bowers's claims are barred. In response to the Secretary's motion, Bowers did not dispute or otherwise respond to the contention that Majors Sturdevant and Coburn supervised in both her military and civilian capacities. See Fisher v. Peters, 249 F.3d 433, 443-44 (noting that the plaintiff challenged conduct by supervisors who reviewed her in both her military and civilian positions); Willis v. Roche, 256 Fed.Appx. 534, 537 (3d Cir.2007) (noting that the ART challenged conduct by an officer supervising him in both his military and civilian capacities). Bowers contends on appeal that Majors Sturdevant and Coburn did not supervise her in her military capacity and were not in her military side chain of command; however, it is not disputed that she held a military rank in her reserve unit, and that her claims challenge the conduct of superior military officers serving at the same military station, if not within the same unit, in a direct supervisory capacity. Thus, any investigation into the allegedly discriminatory and retaliatory actions by these officers necessarily threatens an intrusion into officer-subordinate relationships and the unique structure of the military establishment. See Mier, 57 F.3d at 749-50 (Military personnel cannot sue superior officers to recover damages for alleged constitutional violations because the `relationship between enlisted military personnel and their superior officers ... is at the heart of the necessarily unique structure of the Military Establishment.' (quoting Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296, 300, 305, 103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586 (1983))); cf. Overton, 373 F.3d at 96 (Any attempt surgically to dissect and analyze the civilian relationship between Overton and Fletcher, with its military dimensions, moreover, would itself threaten to intrude into their military relationship.). Bowers urges the Court to follow the Federal Circuit's analysis in Jentoft v. United States, 450 F.3d 1342 (Fed.Cir. 2006). In that case, a National Guard technician alleged that she had been discriminated against in violation of the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d). Jentoft, 450 F.3d at 1343. That statute applies to employees, a term that includes a person employed as a civilian in the military departments. 29 U.S.C. § 203(e)(2)(A)(i). The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit allowed her claim to proceed based on its reading of 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(1), which provides, in relevant part: For purposes of this section and any other provision of law, a military technician (dual status) is a Federal civilian employee who (A) is employed under section 3101 of title 5 or section 709(b) of title 32; (B) is required as a condition of that employment to maintain membership in the Selected Reserve; and (C) is assigned to a civilian position as a technician in the organizing, administering, instructing, or training of the Selected Reserve or in the maintenance and repair of supplies or equipment issued to the Selected Reserve or the armed forces. Id. (emphasis added). The court reasoned that there is no language in § 10216(a) limiting the circumstances in which a dual status technician can be considered a federal civilian employee. Jentoft, 450 F.3d at 1348. The court distinguished this Court's decision in Fisher because Fisher did not consider the language in § 10216(a). Id. at 1349. In two separate opinions, the Fifth Circuit has rejected the holding in Jentoft as applied to Title VII claims by National Guard technicians and ARTs. In Walch v. Adjutant General's Department of Texas, 533 F.3d 289 (5th Cir.2008), the Fifth Circuit noted that the enactment and amendment of § 10216 in 1996-97 did not change the status of National Guard technicians; they were already civilian employees under the National Guard Technicians Act. Id. at 299-300. In a separate case involving an ART, the Fifth Circuit concluded: Title VII claims arising from an ART's military status constitute an impermissible intrusion into military personnel decisions. Nothing in the legislative history of § 10216(a)(1)(B) suggests that Congress intended to intrude on such military personnel decisions. Adopting the rule implied by appellant's distinction would create an absolute right of ARTs, as dual status employees, to assert Title VII claims against the Air Force, even for claims arising from events falling wholly within the military sphere. Section 10216(a) does not countenance this result, and based on [the Fifth Circuit's earlier decision in] Brown we reject it. Williams v. Wynne, 533 F.3d 360, 367 (5th Cir.2008) (citations omitted); see also Zuress v. Donley, 606 F.3d 1249, 1255 (9th Cir.2010) (disagreeing with Jentoft and noting that [t]here is no mention of Title VII in the legislative history of the 1997 Amendments [to § 10216(a)], nor is there any indication that Congress intended to authorize any cause of action that was previously unavailable to a dual status technician). The Court declines to follow Jentoft in this case. First, the Court notes that Jentoft is distinguishable because it involved a claim under the Equal Pay Act. Whether that act should be interpreted to allow claims by dual status technicians is not before the Court. Second, as applied to Title VII claims, the reasoning in Jentoft is not persuasive. In its previous cases, the Court acknowledged, along with every other circuit that has considered claims by dual status technicians, that National Guard technicians occupy a position with a civilian component. Fisher v. Peters, 249 F.3d 433, 438 (6th Cir.2001); see also Brown v. Roche, 206 Fed.Appx. 430, 431 (6th Cir.2006) (unpublished) (citing 10 U.S.C. § 10216). But § 10216(a)(1) does not end with the statement that dual status technicians are federal civilian employees. It states that National Guard technicians and ARTs are dual status employees because they are federal civilian employees and members of the reserve forces. 10 U.S.C. § 10216(a)(1). Thus, like the courts in Walch, Williams, and Zuress, the Court is not persuaded that the language of § 10216(a)(1) constitutes clear direction from Congress to extend remedies under Title VII or the Rehabilitation Act to individuals occupying dual status. Finally, Bowers urges the Court to adopt the three-factor incident to service test used in Parker v. United States, 611 F.2d 1007 (5th Cir.1980), to determine whether an injured service member was barred from bringing an FTCA claim. Those factors include: (1) the duty status of the service member, (2) the site of the injury, and (3) the function performed by the service member when the injury occurred. Id. at 1013-14. However, Bowers offers no authority or rationale for applying this test to claims under Title VII or the Rehabilitation Act. The Court declines to depart from its approach in Leistiko and Fisher.