Court Opinion

ID: 9843207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:30:40.251621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:01.121384
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Concern about maintaining an appropriate relationship between members of the regular military forces and members of the reserves pervades the record of the statutes here at issue. Congress acted to assure that, during the promotion/rating process, at least one reserve officer would participate in the rating of any reserve officer. That is, reserve officers competing for retention and promotion would not be rated by a body consisting entirely of non-reservists.
The statutes require that at least one reserve officer must be present on the selection board that rates a reserve officer. The panel majority rules that this requirement is satisfied when, as in this case, one reserve officer is included in the forty-person body from which rating panels are drawn, and that it was unnecessary for the five-person panel that rated Captain Fluel-len to include the one reserve officer. I can not agree.
Relevant statutes include (with emphases added):
10 U.S.C. § 612(a)(3). When reserve officers of an armed force are to be considered by a selection board, the membership of the board shall include at least one reserve officer of that armed force, with the exact number of reserve officers to be determined by the Secretary of the military department concerned, in his discretion, except that in the case of a board which is considering officers in the grade of colonel or brigadier general or, in the case of officers of the Navy, captain or rear admiral (lower half), no reserve officer need be included if there are no reserve officers of that armed force on active duty in the next higher grade who are eligible to serve on the board.
The legislative history of this statute includes congressional observation of promotion difficulties that had been encountered by reserve officers when there was no reserve participation in the selection process:
The bill, as reported by the committee, would require at least one reserve officer on a selection board convened to consider a group of officers that includes reserve officers. The committee was disturbed by promotion difficulties encountered in the past as the result of constituting boards without reserve officers as required under law and wishes to make very clear to the Department of Defense that it does not expect such procedures inconsistent with law to occur in the future.
H.R.Rep. No. 96-1462, at 42 (1980), reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6333, 6373.
Section 12643 (previously § 266) contains the same requirement when reservists are evaluated for other purposes:
10 U.S.C. § 12643(a). Except as provided in section 612(a)(3) of this title and except for boards that may be convened to select Reserves for appointment in the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps, each board convened for the appointment, promotion, demotion, involuntary release from active duty, discharge, or retirement of Reserves shall include at least one member of the Reserves, with the exact number of Reserves determined by the Secretary concerned in his discretion.
The courts well recognized the statutory purpose whereby Congress attempted to *1306protect reserve officers against bias by mandating reserve officer participation in decisions affecting reservists:
The Reserve Act’s legislative history reveals a congressional intent to establish selection boards that would protect Reserve officers against whatever generic bias may exist against them in selection boards composed entirely of regular Army officers. The history also makes clear that Congress decided to attempt to remedy this bias itself by imposing nondiscretionary institutional safeguards designed to ensure Reserve participation in decisions affecting Reserve members.
Dilley v. Alexander, 603 F.2d 914, 922-23 (D.C.Cir.1979); see Sargisson v. United States, 913 F.2d 918, 923 (Fed.Cir.1990) (“Section 266(a) was enacted because ‘Congress was concerned that the military establishments (with their significant sector of Regular officers) not discriminate against Reserves’ ”) (quoting Doyle v. United States, 220 Ct.Cl. 285, 599 F.2d 984, 994 (Ct.Cl.1979)). In Doyle the court discussed 10 U.S.C. § 266(a) and concluded that “Reserve members of the selection boards were to be there to minimize the chance that conscious or unconscious bias against Reserves, as such, would enter into the selection process.”
The panel majority, ignoring statute and precedent, now holds that it suffices if there is one reservist in the forty-member pool of officers from which the rating board is constituted. It is not disputed that these bodies operated through essentially autonomous five-member panels, concerned by taking the panel members from the forty-member board. In 1989 there was only one reserve officer among the forty, and in 1991 there were two. It is not disputed that no reservist served on the panels that were convened to consider the group that included Captain Fluellen. I can not agree that the statute is met with by such a distorted procedure.
The majority stresses a statement in the legislative history that “the requirement for one reserve member apply only to the selection board as a whole and not to each panel or other administrative subdivision. H.R.Rep. No. 97-141, at 12, reprinted in 1981 U.S.C.C.A.N. 24, 35. However, this is not inconsistent with the statutory requirement that when a reserve officer is being evaluated, a reserve officer must participate. The statute itself contemplates that not every panel will be concerned with reserve officers, and provides that reserve officers need not participate in the selection of only regular officers, or when reserve officers are being selected for appointment to the Regular military. See 10 U.S.C. § 612(a)(3), 12643(a) (requiring reserve participation when reserves are under consideration); see H.R.Rep. No. 97-141, at 3, reprinted in 1981 U.S.C.C.A.N. 24, 26. However, when a reserve officer is being evaluated, a reserve officer must be included in those doing the evaluation. I must, respectfully, dissent from my colleagues’ contrary ruling.