Feliciano v. Department of Transportation

Feliciano v. Department of Transportation
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 9, 2024 Decided April 30, 2025
Full case name	Nick Feliciano v. Department of Transportation
Docket no.	23-861
Citations	605 U.S. ___ ( more )
Argument	Oral argument
Decision	Opinion
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas  · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch  · Brett Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett  · Ketanji Brown Jackson
Case opinions
Majority	Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Barrett
Dissent	Thomas, joined by Alito, Kagan, and Jackson
Laws applied
5 U.S.C.   § 5538, 10 U.S.C.   § 101, and 10 U.S.C.   § 12301

Feliciano v. Department of Transportation, 605 U.S. ___(2025), is a United States Supreme Court case holding that American military reservists are entitled to differential pay whenever they are called to active duty during a national emergency, regardless of whether their service is substantially connected to the emergency.

Background

Aside from the active personnel of the United States Armed Forces, the United States maintains seven reserve components. The 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act required the federal government to compensate reservists for the difference between their military and civilian pay when calling them to active duty "during a national emergency," among other situations. ^[1]

In 2012, Nick Feliciano was called from his civilian work as an air traffic controller with the Federal Aviation Administration to support the Coast Guard Reserve by escorting ships to and from harbor during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. After his claim for differential pay was denied by the Merit Systems Protection Board and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Feliciano appealed to the Supreme Court. ^[2]

Supreme Court

Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch held that reservists called to active duty during a national emergency do not need to prove that their service was substantively connected to the emergency. In United States v. Ressam (2008), the Supreme Court previously held that in statutory interpretation, "during" ordinarily denotes a temporal link. Gorsuch further highlighted the difficulty of sufficiently relating one's service to a national emergency, given that all reservists ultimately support the American military. ^[2]

Dissent

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion warning that other portions of Title 10 of the US Code refer to "contingency operations" with the expectation of use in circumstances related to a national emergency, rather than solely during such events. The majority responded that the doctrine of constitutional avoidance would allow courts to limit excessive application of military law. ^[3]

Thomas argued that because there has only been one year without national emergencies since 1933, this decision will near-constantly entitle reservists to differential pay. Gorsuch rebutted that textualism demands adherence to the natural reading unless absurd. ^[3]

References

1. Fertig, Alexandra; Taylor, Garrett. Lee, Sean (ed.). "Feliciano v. Department of Transportation". Legal Information Institute . Retrieved 4 May 2025.
2. Howe, Amy (1 May 2025). "Court Rules for Coast Guard Reservist in "National Emergency" Pay Dispute". SCOTUSblog . Retrieved 4 May 2025.
3. Feliciano v. Department of Transportation, 605U.S.____ (S.Ct.2025).