On May 7, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that federal employees who serve in the U.S. military as reservists are entitled to receive the equivalent of their civil pay when serving on active duty in a national emergency. At the heart of the issue was Nick Feliciano, a Coast Guard petty officer who was called to active duty from 2012 to 2017. The Justices concluded that Mr. Feliciano should have been paid the difference between his Coast Guard salary and his pay as an air traffic controller at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Government attorneys argued that Mr. Feliciano didn’t qualify for the “differential pay statute,” because although he was called up as a result of the operational needs during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his Coast Guard job escorting ships to and from harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, didn’t count. However, the majority opinion of the Supreme Court stated that the law covered any federal civilian employee called up during a national emergency.
Roughly 1.2 million Americans serve as reserve members, and of those, thousand work for the federal government.
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