Facts of the Case

Provided by Oyez

Nick Feliciano, an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration and a Coast Guard reserve officer, performed active duty from July to September 2012 under 10 U.S.C. § 12302, receiving differential pay. His service was extended to July 2013 without differential pay. From July 2013 to September 2014, he served again under 10 U.S.C. § 12301(d) to support various operations, followed by medical treatment until February 2017 under 10 U.S.C. § 12301(h). In 2018, he filed an appeal alleging a hostile work environment and later amended it to include claims about denied differential pay under 5 U.S.C. § 5538. The Board denied his request for differential pay, citing Adams v. Department of Homeland Security, 3 F.4th 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2021), which required service in a statutory contingency operation for eligibility. Mr. Feliciano appealed this decision.

Questions

  1. Is a federal civilian employee called or ordered to active duty under a provision of law during a national emergency is entitled to differential pay even if the duty is not directly connected to the national emergency.

Conclusions

  1. A federal civilian employee is entitled to differential pay when called to active duty under any provision of law “during a national emergency,” without needing to show that the service was substantively connected to the emergency. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the 5-4 majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

    The plain meaning of “during a national emergency” imposes only a temporal requirement: that the reservist’s service coincides in time with a declared national emergency. The word “during” typically conveys a contemporaneous relationship, not a substantive one. Other statutes show that when Congress wants to require both a temporal and substantive connection, it does so explicitly using qualifiers like “during and because of.” No such language appears here. Reading in a requirement for a substantive connection would insert an additional element not found in the text and create vagueness about how strong or direct that connection must be.

    Practical and contextual considerations also support a temporal reading. The differential pay statute interacts with other laws that use similar language, such as 10 U.S.C. § 12302, which authorizes activation of reservists “[i]n time of national emergency” and is understood to require only a temporal link. Requiring a substantive connection would also create confusion for private employers, who could inadvertently violate criminal statutes for providing differential pay in good faith. The Court rejected arguments that its interpretation would make the language superfluous or lead to absurd policy outcomes, emphasizing that any perceived policy flaws lie within Congress’s authority to revise.

    Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.