DocketNumber： 95-1694
Filed Date： 1/22/1996
Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 9/21/2015
January 17, 1996 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
____________________
No. 95-1694
MAJOR JAMES L. CADIGAN,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, BOARD FOR CORRECTION
OF MILITARY RECORDS AND TOGO D. WEST, JR.,
SECRETARY OF THE ARMY,
Defendants, Appellees.
____________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Edward F. Harrington, U.S. District Judge] ___________________
____________________
Before
Selya, Cyr and Lynch,
Circuit Judges. ______________
____________________
Mark Fitzsimmons on brief for appellant. ________________
Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, and Lori J. Holik, _________________ ______________
Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellees.
____________________
____________________
Per Curiam. We have carefully reviewed the ___________
district court record and the briefs of the parties, and we
affirm the judgment of the district court for essentially the
reasons set forth in the Order dated June 1, 1995.
Our decision is not a reflection on the merits of
appellant's entitlement to the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The record in this case evidences Mr. Cadigan's extraordinary
courage and service to his country, service which most likely
saved the lives of two platoons of American troops in Germany
in 1945. Simply, as the district court found, it had no
power to review the decision of the Army Board for
Corrections of Military Records; the question before the
court was not whether it had jurisdiction to consider ____________
appellant's case, but whether the question presented was
justiciable. ___________
Appellant does not complain that the Army failed to
follow a mandate contained in a relevant statute or
regulation, committed an unauthorized act, or made a factual
error which rises to the level of an injustice -- the kinds
of claims which usually are justiciable. See Dodson v. ___ ______
United States, 988 F.2d 1199, 1204 & n.6 (Fed. Cir. 1993). ______________
Rather, appellant asserts that, under the facts he presented,
the Army should have awarded him the Medal of Honor.
However, the decision whether to award a medal is one left to
the complete discretion of the military. Wilson v. United ______ ______
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States, 24 Cl. Ct. 842, 846 (1992) (the decision by the Air ______
Force to award one medal to plaintiff instead of another is
"purely a discretionary one and therefore is not reviewable
by [a] court"). Indeed, the criteria for such awards are not
within the realm of judicial expertise, implicating instead
the "complex, subtle, and professional decisions" left by the
Constitution to the judgment of the military. See Gilligan ___ ________
v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 10 (1973). The cases appellant cites ______
are not to the contrary as they involved justiciable matters.
See, e.g., Swann v. Garrett, 811 F.Supp. 1336 (N.D.Ind. 1992) ___ ____ _____ _______
(review of the factual question whether plaintiff had been _______
awarded the Navy Cross).
Because this case does not present a substantial
question, the appeal is summarily affirmed. See Local Rule ___
27.1.
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