Docket 23-861
Feliciano
DecidedApr 30, 2025
5-4decision
Source: CourtListener.
Federal reservists who are also civilian employees get pay gap coverage during any active national emergency
What it does
The Court ruled that the word "during" in the differential pay statute means only a time-based overlap: a reservist is entitled to differential pay if his active-duty service happens while a declared national emergency is in effect, with no requirement to prove his duties were directly tied to that emergency. The Federal Circuit's "substantive connection" test — which required reservists to show their service was linked to a specific emergency — is overturned. The case is sent back to the lower court for further proceedings consistent with this ruling.
Who benefits
Federal civilian employees (such as air traffic controllers, federal agency workers, and other government employees) who also serve as military reservists and are called to active duty while a national emergency is declared, regardless of whether their military duties relate to that emergency.
Who is affected
Federal agencies that serve as civilian employers of military reservists, which must now pay the difference between a reservist's military and civilian wages whenever the reservist is on active duty during any declared national emergency, even if the reservist's duties are unrelated to that emergency.
Practical impact
Federal civilian employees who serve as military reservists and are called to active duty under any legal authority — not just the specific statutes listed in the differential pay law — are now entitled to have their pay gap covered by their civilian agency whenever a national emergency is in effect, which has been nearly continuously the case for decades. Federal agencies must review and potentially pay back differential pay to reservists who were previously denied it under the now-overturned "substantive connection" test. Private employers who voluntarily provide differential pay to reservist-employees during declared national emergencies also have clearer legal protection from criminal liability under the federal salary-supplementation law.
Majority — Gorsuch
Joined by: Roberts, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett
The majority held that the ordinary meaning of the word "during" is simply "at the same time as" or "contemporaneous with," and does not carry an implied requirement of a substantive connection — a point the government itself had previously argued before the Court in an earlier case. The Court reasoned that when Congress wants to require both a time-based and a substantive link, it says so explicitly, using phrases like "during and in relation to" or "during and because of" in other statutes; the absence of such language here signals that only a time-based condition applies. The majority also noted that another provision already in the differential pay framework — covering reservists called up "[i]n time of national emergency" — is conceded by the government to require only a time-based overlap, making it implausible that the nearly identical phrase "during a national emergency" would demand more. The Court further observed that requiring a substantive connection would create an unworkable standard, since the statute provides no principled way to define what kind of connection is sufficient, and would create potential criminal liability for private employers who provide differential pay without knowing what connection is required. Finally, the Congressional Budget Office, when estimating the cost of similar legislation, calculated based on all reservists on active duty — not just those engaged in emergency-related work — providing additional evidence of how an ordinary reader would understand the statutory language.
Dissent reasoning
The dissent argued that the word "during" is context-dependent and does not always mean a mere time-based overlap — in many legal settings, courts have read "during" to require a substantive connection between two events, not just their simultaneous occurrence. Justice Thomas wrote that the key context here is that the statute defines a "contingency operation," a term whose ordinary meaning refers to military operations responding to a specific contingency or emergency, not every military operation that happens to occur while some emergency exists somewhere. The dissent contended that reading "during a national emergency" as purely time-based would effectively make the phrase meaningless, because the United States has had at least one declared national emergency in effect almost continuously since 1933, meaning virtually every military operation would automatically qualify. The dissent also pointed to Congress's later amendments to the statute — which added specific new categories of activations to the list — as evidence that Congress understood the "during a national emergency" catchall to have limited reach; those amendments would have been unnecessary if the catchall already covered all active-duty service during any ongoing emergency. Finally, the dissent noted that the majority's broad reading of "contingency operation" could have unintended consequences across dozens of other laws that use that term, such as provisions governing civilian court-martial jurisdiction and real estate transaction reporting requirements.
Constitutional question
Does a federal civilian employee who is also a military reservist qualify for "differential pay" — compensation making up the gap between military and civilian wages — simply by serving on active duty while a national emergency is ongoing, or must the reservist also prove that his service was substantively connected to a particular national emergency?
Precedent changed
The Court effectively overturned the Federal Circuit's rule from Adams v. Department of Homeland Security, 3 F.4th 1375 (2021), which had required reservists to show a substantive connection between their service and a particular national emergency to qualify for differential pay.