Court Opinion

ID: 9732643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:29:38.119059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:11.573126
License: Public Domain

JONES, Chief Judge
(concurring in part).
I agree with the disposition made of plaintiff’s second claim on the basis stated in the concurring opinion of Judge WHITAKER.
But I wholly disagree with the action of the majority in overruling the Gilmartin case, 109 F.Supp. 255, 124 Ct.Cl. 434, which I think correctly states the law.
I do not think schooling in the United States Military and Naval Academies should be treated as service in the Army or Navy for any purpose unless it is specifically so provided. These schools are maintained wholly at Government expense. Students who receive schooling and training at State and other academies are not permitted to count such training as service in any sense. Yet such schools and academies furnish far more of our officers by number than do both the United States academies.
In fact there was such a demand for appointment to the United States academies for educational purposes, and so many were resigning as soon as they had received their commissions immediately after finishing the course that Congress found it necessary to require at least two years’ actual service after graduation before the cadets were permitted to resign their commissions and leave the service.
*855The majority opinion seeks to draw a distinction between counting such school attendance for length of service and counting it for other purposes. But practically all pay, allowances and other perquisites are affected by length of service.
From the opinion in the case of United States v. Noce, 268 U.S. 613, at pages 617-618, 45 S.Ct. 610, at page 611, 69 L.Ed. 1116, we quote the following:
“The question whether service in either of the Academies was Army or Navy service which should count for longevity pay and retirement was a long standing issue between the officers of the Army and Navy who were graduates of the two academies on the one hand and the officers who were not graduates and the accounting officers of the Treasury on the other. This is evident from the decision of this court in United States v. Morton, 112 U.S. 1, 5 S.Ct. 1, 28 L.Ed. 613, and United States v. Watson, 130 U.S. 80, 9 S.Ct. 430, 32 L.Ed. 852. The legislative history of the act of 1912 and that of 1913 shows that the question was much contested between the two houses. The Report of the House Committee on Military Affairs (H. R. 270, 62nd Congress, 2nd Sess.) gives an extended argument against the practice of computing cadet service for pay and retirement purposes. It said:
“ ‘The result of this practice is that a graduate of the Military Academy who was appointed a second lieutenant, after having been educated for that appointment for four or more years wholly at the expense of the government, receives his first 10 per cent, increase of pay after not more than one year of service as a commissioned officer, whereas the second lieutenant who is appointed from civil life, after having been fitted for the appointment wholly at his own expense, must serve for five full years as a commissioned officer before he can receive his first 10 per cent, increase of pay. And the same disparity between the two cases continues to the end.’ ”
“After pointing out other discriminations arising from this practice, the report continues:
“ ‘It is but just to say that this preposterous practice did not originate with the War Department. It was the result of a decision rendered by the Supreme Court October 27, 1884 (United States v. Morton, 112 U.S. 1, [5 S.Ct. 1, 28 L.Ed. 613]), to the effect that the time during which a person has served as a cadet is to be regarded as “actual time of service in the army.” * * * ’
“After referring specifically to retirement, the report says:
“ ‘These are additional discriminations against the civilian appointee who pays for his own preliminary education and in favor of the graduate of the Military Academy who is educated for his commission at the expense of the government.’
“In view of this long-continued controversy which before 1912 had finally been settled only by two decisions of this court, it is inconceivable that the two acts of 1912 and 1913, nullifying the effect of those decisions, and passed after a heated struggle, should have been repealed without mention of the cadet service in the proviso now said to have worked this result.”
I think the Congress in enacting section 6 of the Act of August 24, 1912, 37 Stat. 569, 594, especially when read in connection with the committee report, quoted above, showed clearly that the intention was to remove the manifest discrimination between the treatment given officers who had been trained at the United States academies and those trained elsewhere at their own expense; after all, these officers were in the same service.