Weber v. Clifford, Civ. No. 19883.
| Decision Date | 20 September 1968 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 19883. |
| Citation | 289 F. Supp. 960 |
| Parties | Karl WEBER, Jr., infant by his father and next friend, Karl Weber, Sr. v. Honorable Clark CLIFFORD; Honorable Stanley R. Resor; General Harold K. Johnson. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Claude L. Callegary, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiff.
Stephen H. Sachs, U. S. Atty., and Alan I. Baron, Asst. U. S. Atty., Baltimore, Md., for defendants.
This action has been filed by a nineteen year old soldier, with a history of rheumatic fever, against the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army to set aside a special order to proceed to Oakland, California, for further assignment for military service in Vietnam, and to require that he be classified for limited service. Plaintiff is a citizen of Maryland, who has been stationed in Oklahoma and is now in transit, visiting his parents in Maryland. The Court issued a show cause order and defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter of the complaint, and for other reasons.
The Court held a prompt hearing, reserved ruling on the motion to dismiss and received evidence offered by counsel for plaintiff. The evidence shows that plaintiff had rheumatic fever when he was 14 years old; that he was bedridden for two months, and was restricted in his activities for a year. Since then he has taken penicillin tablets, 200,000 units daily. The dosage was increased to 800,000 units a day for ten days or so on three occasions when he had a sore throat. His family physician expects him to remain on penicillin indefinitely. Nevertheless he was accepted for military service, and assigned to an artillery unit, despite the protest of his family and his doctor. There has been no evident cardiac damage and no recurrence of the rheumatic fever. The Army doctors considered him qualified for induction with no duty or assignment limitation "in accordance with existing Army Regulations".
Plaintiff's doctor challenges the assignment to Vietnam because plaintiff is susceptible to a recurrence of his rheumatic fever or other serious consequences if he develops a streptococcal infection. It seems to be agreed that streptococcal infections trigger rheumatic fever in a small group (less than 1%) of persons susceptible to that disease because of genetic or other reasons. Consequently, wet clothing, undue fatigue, extreme changes in temperature, and lack of proper diet and rest, are much more hazardous to persons who have had rheumatic fever than to other persons. Those who have had rheumatic fever must take penicillin regularly to prevent streptococcal infections. This was recognized by the Army doctors, who...
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United States ex rel. Armstrong v. Wheeler, Civ. A. No. 70-1755.
...prior active duty station or in that of his subsequent station. Morales Crespo v. Perrin, supra, 309 F.Supp. at 205; Weber v. Clifford, 289 F.Supp. 960, 961 (D.C.Md.1968). The Army's contacts with Armstrong in Philadelphia from 1967 to the present make the city closely analogous to the duty......
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Miller v. Secretary of Defense
...306 F.Supp. 1013 (D.C.Mass. 1969), rev'd on other grounds, 420 F.2d 662 (1st Cir. 1970); Laxer v. Cushman, supra; Weber v. Clifford, 289 F.Supp. 960, 961 (D.C.Md.1968). 12 Petitioner summarizes his belief in a prayer written by his wife and himself for their wedding as follows: "Grant us cl......
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Cushing v. Tetter
...1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1023, 92 S.Ct. 698, 30 L.Ed.2d 672 (1972); Byrne v. Resor, 412 F.2d 774 (3d Cir. 1969); Weber v. Clifford, 289 F.Supp. 960 (D.Md.1968). However, these cases are distinguishable. In United States v. Sowul, supra, the Court refused to order that an inductee be gi......
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Cooper v. Barker
...duty orders as to one lawfully in the service." This principle has been applied in two very recent decisions of this Court. In Weber v. Clifford, 289 F.Supp. 960. (Decided September 20, 1968), Chief Judge Thomsen dismissed the complaint of a 19-year old soldier with a history of rheumatic f......