Justia Military Law Opinion Summaries

Mulder served in the Army for three separate periods between 1982 and 1994, accumulating about two years of honorable service. In 1998, the VA assigned Mulder a 50% disability rating for two service-connected conditions. Mulder was arrested and charged with felonies. Because Mulder was unable to post bail on July 11, 2005, he remained in custody pending trial. On May 19, 2006, Mulder pleaded no contest and a conviction was entered. On June 16, 2006, the court ordered that Mulder serve an initial term of confinement of eight years, six months, followed by six years of supervised release, with credit for the 384 days he had been in custody, specifying May 19, 2006, as the “Date(s) Convicted.” The VA must reduce benefits payments if the recipient is incarcerated for a period in excess of 60 days for conviction of a felony, 38 U.S.C. 5313(a)(1), beginning on the sixty-first day of such incarceration. In July 2007, the VA notified Mulder that his felony conviction and resulting incarceration required it to reduce his disability compensation, effective July 19, 2006. The Board, the Veterans Court, and the Federal Circuit agreed with the VA’s use of the date of the plea and conviction in calculating the reduction. View "Mulder v. McDonald" on Justia Law

The National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1442 filed a group grievance on behalf of 138 NFFE bargaining unit employees at Letterkenny Army Depot (LEAD); Local 2109 filed two grievances on behalf of all of bargaining unit employees at Watervliet Arsenal (WVA). In both grievances, the Union challenged the furloughing of bargaining unit employees for six discontinuous days between July and September in Fiscal Year 2013. The furloughs were the result of an automatic process of federal agency spending reductions called “sequestration.” Arbitrator Kaplan ruled that the furloughs of the employees at LEAD were in accordance with law. Months later, Arbitrator Gross ruled that the furloughs of WVA security employees were not in accordance with law, but that the furloughs of non-security bargaining unit employees at WVA were in accordance with law. The Federal Circuit upheld both decisions. Arbitrators Kaplan and Gross had substantial evidence before them demonstrating that the furlough decisions were reasonable management solutions to the financial restrictions placed on DOD by the sequester, thus promoting the efficiency of the service. View "Nat'l Fed'n of Fed. Employees v. Dep't of the Army" on Justia Law