Supreme Court Decision Syllabus (scotus)

Send us a textIn Feliciano v. Department of Transportation, the Supreme Court clarified the meaning of “during a national emergency” in a federal statute granting differential pay to federal civilian employees who serve as reservists. Nick Feliciano, a federal air traffic controller and Coast Guard reservist, sought differential pay for his active-duty service from 2012 to 2017 under 5 U.S.C. §5538. His service orders cited support for operations like Iraqi Freedom, but he was activated under a statute not specifically named in the law. The question was whether Feliciano qualified for differential pay simply because his service coincided with a declared national emergency, or whether he needed to prove that his service was substantively connected to that emergency.The Federal Circuit denied Feliciano’s claim, requiring a substantive link. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the statute’s plain language imposes a temporal condition only. Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, emphasized that the word