Reservist Goes Too Far on Differential Pay, DOT Tells High Court

Military reservists called to active duty from federal civilian jobs as a national emergency unfolds deserve differential pay only if their service is substantively connected to that emergency, the US Transportation Department told the US Supreme Court.

The court below got it right when it held that a Coast Guard reservist who also worked as a civilian air traffic controller didn’t deserve an agency-funded pay boost just because he was called up “while a national emergency happened to be ongoing—a condition that has been continuously satisfied for nearly half a century,” according to the DOT’s Sept. 27 brief.

Federal ...