Air Force Must Reconsider Officer’s Discharge Before Retirement

The Secretary of the Air Force improperly rewrote a regulation protecting officers from involuntary discharge when they approach retirement, a split Federal Circuit panel said Thursday.

The court reversed the Court of Federal Claims, reviving Lieutenant Colonel Jason D. Engle’s petition to reconsider his discharge. But Engle can’t represent 16 other officers similarly discharged, so their claims must be dismissed, the appeals court said.

Engle, then a major, went before the Air Force Selective Continuation Board in 2011, according to the court. He had been twice passed over for promotion and would have been subject to discharge under the military’s ...