About this Case
The plaintiff, an early military retiree, applied for additional service credit that would have allowed him to reach 20 years of service and qualify for full retirement benefits. The credit was denied under a regulation prohibiting community service credit for employment with a religious organization related to religious instruction, worship services, or proselytization. Plaintiff challenged the regulation’s constitutionality, on its face and as applied. The district court dismissed the complaint, and the retiree appealed to the 6th Circuit.
Summary of NLF's Brief
Our brief argued that the District Court should be reversed for two reasons: (1) Congress’s primary purpose in enacting the legislation that authorized the regulation was to reduce the military forces and encourage early retirement, not to aid the public service organizations themselves; and (2) the Secretary of Defense acted outside his statutory authority in promulgating the regulation of organizations for which former service personnel could work.