Court Opinion

ID: 9449398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:11:23.810201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:49.440731
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge
(dissenting).
I am concerned about the decision in this ease.
In section 7 of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act of 1916, Congress said that an employee drawing compensation under the Act “ * * * shall not receive from the United States any salary, pay, or remuneration whatsoever except in return for services actually performed, and except pensions * * *.” The majority opinion says that a man may receive compensation for services being performed at the same time as he is receiving compensation, and he may receive a pension at the same time he is receiving compensation, but it says that he cannot receive retired pay and compensation at the same time. Why Congress should have permitted a man to receive a pension, and denied him the right to receive retired pay, I do not know. In Lemly v. United States, 109 Ct.Cl. 760, 75 F.Supp. 248, cited in the majority opinion, we held that retired pay is not a pension, but if it is not a pension, then it seems to me to necessarily follow that it must be pay on account of “services actually performed.” It is true those services were not being performed while he was receiving compensation, but section 7 does not require that the services be performed while receiving compensation. It merely says “except for services actually performed.” I cannot escape the conclusion that retired pay is for services actually performed.
I cannot ascribe to Congress an intention to allow a person to draw a pension and to deprive him of retired pay.
In the Lemly case, 109 Ct.Cl. at page 763, 75 F.Supp. at page 249, it was said:
“Retirement pay, on the other hand, is a continuation of active pay on a reduced basis. Even though an officer is retired from active duty and is receiving retirement pay, he is still subject to call to active duty as long as his physical condition will permit. He is still an officer in the service of his country even though on the retired list.”
Moreover, in Mulholland v. United States, 139 Ct.Cl. 507, 153 F.Supp. 462, also cited in the majority opinion, we held that an enlisted man in the Naval Reserve drawing retainer pay came within the exception of “services actually performed.” We said that the retainer pay was partly for holding himself in readiness to perform active service when called upon, and partly in return for services previously rendered. Since we said it was partly for holding himself in readiness to render active service when called upon, we said it came within the exception of “services actually performed.”
Now, 34 U.S.C. § 433** provides:
“The Secretary of the Navy is authorized in time of war, or when a national emergency exists, to call any enlisted man on the retired list into active service for such duty as he may be able to perform. While so employed such enlisted men shall receive the pay and allowances authorized by section 115 of Title 37.” [March 3, 1915, ch. 83, 38 Stat. 941; Aug. 29, 1916, ch. 417, 39 Stat. 591.]
Plaintiff was recalled to duty on March 26, 1942, during World War II. He was subject to such recall by virtue of the provisions of the above quoted section. Therefore, a part of the consideration for the payment to him of retired pay was this obligation to render further naval service when called upon in time of war. It would seem, therefore, that a man drawing retired pay and a man drawing retainer pay are in practically the same category.
It would seem to me that the decision of the majority is in conflict with that part of the decision in the Mulholland case which bases the plaintiff’s right to recover on the ground that the payment of retainer pay was in part considera*737in tion of the man’s holding himself readiness to return to active duty when called upon.
I confess that if we construe the exception to apply not only to pay received for services performed at the time the compensation is being paid, and also to pensions, and also to retired pay, then it is not apparent to what the exception does apply. And, yet, on the other hand, if we say it does not apply to retired pay, then we run in conflict with the Mulholland case, and we run in conflict with the above quotation from the Lemly case.
JONES, Chief Judge, joins in the foregoing dissent.

 Now 10 U.S.C.A. § 6482.