Court Opinion

ID: 9457751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:32:24.999099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:29.861500
License: Public Domain

*407BREITENSTEIN, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority says that the Board was “within its administrative prerogative under § 1625.2 in labelling his [registrant’s] claim a post-mailing claim.” I agree. The issue is whether the status change resulted “from circumstances over which the registrant had no control.”
In Ehlert v. United States, 1971, 402 U.S. 99, 91 S.Ct. 1319, 28 L.Ed.2d 625, the Court was concerned with a post-mailing CO claim. With reference to § 1625.2 the Court said that “the regulation was meant to cover at least such nonvolitional changes as injury to the registrant or death in his family making him the sole surviving son.” Ibid, at 104, 91 S.Ct. at 1323. The Court also said that “it is wholly rational to confine it [§ 1625.2] to those ‘objectively identifiable’ and ‘extraneous’ circumstances that are most likely to prove manageable without putting undue burdens on the administration of the Selective Service System.” Ibid, at 105, 91 S.Ct. at 1324.
The majority says that “acceptance of an offer of employment prior to the mailing of an induction notice is obviously not one of the evils against which it [§ 1625.2] was aimed.” I cannot read the record as showing a pre-mailing offer and acceptance of employment. The registrant’s August 13 letter contains the following statement immediately before the paragraph quoted in n. 1 of the majority opinion:
“I have not yet received formal invitation, but will notify you as soon as I have. In addition the Peace Corps in Washington should notify you of my acceptance within a week or so from now.”
An August 22 letter from the Peace Corps to the Board says that the registrant “Entered Peace Corps training on 8/21/69.” On August 23 the registrant wrote the Board saying that he entered the Peace Corps on August 21, and that:
“I hereby request II-A occupational deferment on the grounds that my Peace Corps service is in the national interest.”
The record convinces me that there was no pre-mailing offer of employment. Absent an offer, there could be no acceptance.
So far as the registrant is concerned, the offer of employment in this case was nonvolitional. To read § 1625.2 to permit an anticipatory acceptance creates an unmanageable situation unduly burdensome to the Selective Service System. Here, the offer of employment came after the mailing of the induction notice. The acceptance came after the offer and was a volitional act. Accordingly, § 1625.2 bars reopening. Clark v. Volatile, 1970, 3 Cir., 427 F.2d 7, 10. Changes in deferment procedures should be made by Congress or the Selective Service System.1

. For example Executive Order No. 11527, 35 Fed.Reg. 6571 (1970), provides that as of April 23, 1970, requests for occupational deferment based on employment made on or after that date will no longer be considered. See Local Board Memorandum No. 105.