Court Opinion

ID: 9449466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:13:08.33451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:51.034551
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge
(dissenting).
There can be no doubt that the majority has given the statute a “liberal” interpretation. It is an interpretation of which, in my opinion, the statute is not susceptible.
The statute gives to a reservist certain benefits, after having been ordered to inactive duty training, if he is disabled in line of duty “while so employed.” He cannot recover for an injury unless at the time he was injured he was employed on inactive duty training. At the time of plaintiff’s injury he was not “so employed”; he was only on his way to being so employed. He was not so employed until after he had reported for duty.
Suppose after he had entered the compound, but before he had reported, he remembered something he had forgotten to do, at his home or his office, something that made it imperative for him to return, and he did return without having reported for duty, would anyone say he was then employed on inactive duty training?
Congress did not intend to compensate a reservist for injury until he had reported. To illustrate: 10 U.S.C. § 6148 (a) (Supp. V, 1952), reads the same as the same numbered section of the 1958 edition, so far as is here pertinent. It gives certain benefits to reservists “while so employed [on inactive duty training],” but subsection (c) of section 6148 gives certain benefits to certain reservists “while on active duty or performing inactive-duty training, or while on authorized travel to or from such duty or training.” (Italics supplied) So when Congress wanted to take care of an injury incurred before reporting for duty, it said so in plain words. (This section does not appear in the 1958 edition.)
Again: Title 38 U.S.C. relates to veterans’ benefits. Section 106(d) thereof provides that:
“For the purposes of this title, any individual—
******
“(2) who is disabled or dies from an injury incurred after December 31, 1956, by him while proceeding directly to or returning directly from such active duty for training or inactive duty training, as the case may be;
shall be deemed to have been on active duty for training or inactive duty training, as the case may be, at the time such injury was incurred. * * *»»
No such language appears in section 6148 of Title 10.
The Judge Advocate General of the Navy and the Comptroller General have both expressed the opinion that inactive duty training had not commenced until plaintiff was mustered in for training. These are the officials immediately in charge of the administration of this section. I do not think their interpretation of the statute should be set aside *880unless it is clear that the language of the statute, etc., demands it. To say the least, it is not clear that Congress intended that a reservist should be compensated for an injury sustained before he reported for duty.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.