Fontana v. White, 01-5383.
| Citation | 334 F.3d 80 |
| Decision Date | 11 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-5383.,01-5383. |
| Parties | John L. FONTANA, Lieutenant Colonel, and Kevin P. Murphy, Lieutenant Colonel, Appellants, v. Thomas E. WHITE, Secretary of the Army, Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia) |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 00cv01732).
Charles W. Gittins argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs was Louise Bouscaren McKnew.
Paul A. Mussenden, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., U.S. Attorney, R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Tara Osborn and Steven D. Bryant, Counsel, Office of the Judge Advocate General.
Before: EDWARDS, ROGERS, and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.
Appellants John L. Fontana and Kevin P. Murphy are lieutenant colonels currently serving on active duty as Army physicians at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. They began their military careers at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979, at which time each signed an agreement to complete a military service obligation in return for a free undergraduate education. After graduating from West Point in 1983, each appellant signed another agreement by which he incurred an additional service obligation in exchange for a free medical school education at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). Both appellants subsequently signed further agreements prior to entering into additional government-subsidized medical training, including internships, residencies, and fellowships. Each appellant accepted, in his most recent such agreement, the Army's current calculation of the date on which his service obligation would end: for Fontana, April 1, 2005; for Murphy, March 29, 2006.
In May 1999, however, Fontana and Murphy submitted their resignations, contending that they had completed their respective service obligations. The Army disagreed, and refused to accept the resignations. The appellants then filed applications with the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records (ABCMR), requesting that their personnel records be amended to reflect their own calculations of their release dates. In separate decisions, the Board rejected the appellants' applications on the ground that the Army had correctly calculated their service obligations in accordance with the applicable statutes, regulations, and agreements. In particular, the Board held that each officer had committed himself to a twelve-year total obligation in return for his undergraduate and medical school education, against which his time in medical school did not count: a five-year obligation for West Point, to run consecutively with a seven-year obligation for USUHS. Fontana and Murphy appealed the decisions of the ABCMR to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary of the Army.
The appellants now appeal to this court, offering two theories in support of the contention that they have already completed their service obligations: (1) that their West Point obligations ran concurrently with their seven-year USUHS obligations; and/or (2) that their four years in medical school counted against their West Point obligations. We reject both theories and affirm the judgment of the district court.
On review of a district court's grant of summary judgment in connection with the appeal of a decision of the ABCMR, "we review the ABCMR's decision de novo, applying the same standards as the district court." Frizelle v. Slater, 111 F.3d 172, 176 (D.C.Cir.1997). The district court applied the deferential review standard of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984), and the government contends that we should do the same. The appellants, by contrast, contend that we should show no deference to the Board. We need not resolve this dispute, however, because we conclude that the Board's decisions were correct regardless of the standard of review.
We begin our analysis with the statutes that govern the appellants' service obligations. The first of these is 10 U.S.C. § 4348, which sets forth the obligation that cadets incur in exchange for admission to the United States Military Academy. The relevant portion of the version of the statute that was in effect when the appellants entered West Point in 1979 reads as follows:
(a) Each cadet ... shall sign an agreement that, unless sooner separated, he will —
(1) complete the course of instruction at the Academy;
(2) accept an appointment and serve as a commissioned officer of the Regular Army or the Regular Air Force for at least the five years immediately after graduation; and
(3) accept an appointment as a commissioned officer as a Reserve for service in the Army Reserve or the Air Force Reserve and remain therein until the sixth anniversary of his graduation, if an appointment in the regular component of that armed force is not tendered to him, or if he is permitted to resign as a commissioned officer of that component before that anniversary.
10 U.S.C. § 4348 (1976).1 Thus, pursuant to § 4348(a)(2), the appellants were required to agree that they would complete five years' service in the Regular Army in exchange for their West Point education. Each appellant signed an agreement that mirrored this statutory requirement. See, e.g., Service Agreement, United States Military Academy (July 2, 1979), J.A. at 111 (Fontana).
In July 1983, the appellants resigned from the Regular Army and accepted appointments as active-duty officers in the Army Reserve, as required for entry into USUHS. See Appellee's Br. at App. 1, 5 (letters of resignation); see also Service Agreement, Uniformed Services University of the Health Services, J.A. at 109 (Murphy); id. at 110 (Fontana).2 According to the appellants' reading of § 4348(a)(3), their resignations relieved them of their obligation to serve five years in the Regular Army, imposing instead a requirement that they remain in the Army Reserve until the sixth anniversary of their West Point graduations. And nothing in the statute, the appellants maintain, precludes counting their time at USUHS toward the satisfaction of that obligation.
This argument might have merit if § 4348 and the West Point agreement were viewed in isolation, as though the appellants had entered into no further agreements and incurred no further obligations after graduating from West Point. But while § 4348 sets forth the minimum contractual terms to which each cadet must agree before entering West Point, it does not bar a graduate from agreeing to extend the service obligation that § 4348 requires in exchange for additional free education — as Fontana and Murphy did here. To the contrary, such subsequent agreements are authorized by at least two other statutes, to which we now turn.
The statute that generally governs the Secretary of the Army's authority to enter into contracts concerning the provision of "advanced education assistance" is 10 U.S.C. § 2005. That section states, in relevant part:
(a) The Secretary concerned may require, as a condition to the Secretary providing advanced education assistance to any person, that such person enter into a written agreement with the Secretary concerned under the terms of which such person shall agree —
(1) to complete the educational requirements specified in the agreement and to serve on active duty for a period specified in the agreement;
... and
(4) to such other terms and conditions as the Secretary concerned may prescribe to protect the interest of the United States.
(b) The Secretary concerned shall determine the period of active duty to be served by any person for advanced education assistance to be provided such person by an armed force, except that if the period of active duty required to be served is specified under another provision of law with respect to the advanced education assistance to be provided, the period specified in the agreement referred to in subsection (a) shall be the same as the period specified in such other provision of law.
10 U.S.C. § 2005 (1982).
Section 2005(a) clearly authorizes the Secretary of the Army to require that a student, as a condition of receiving advanced education assistance, agree to such terms as the Secretary may prescribe to protect the interest of the United States. And § 2005(b) specifically authorizes the Secretary to determine the period of active duty to be served by the student in exchange for such advanced education assistance. These grants of authority are broad enough to permit the Secretary to require, as terms of the agreement, that time in medical school not count toward preexisting service obligations like those incurred by the appellants at West Point, and that such preexisting obligations be served consecutively with the additional obligations incurred in return for medical education. As we discuss in Part I.B, the Secretary did in fact include those terms in the appellants' USUHS agreements.
Fontana and Murphy contend, however, that the Secretary's authority to specify such terms is restricted by the "except" clause of § 2005(b): the Secretary is permitted to determine the period of active service to be served in exchange for advanced education assistance to be provided to the individual "except ... if the period of active duty required to be served is specified under another provision of law with respect to the advanced education assistance to be provided." Id. (emphasis added). The appellants argue that because the period of active duty required of West Point graduates was specified "under another provision of law," namely § 4348(a), the Secretary was without authority to alter or extend it. But this argument ignores the balance of the...
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