## Facts

- Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990; the United States responded with an embargo and deployment of forces to Saudi Arabia, including activated National Guard units.
- Michael Ray Ange, a National Guard sergeant, was ordered to deploy to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Shield.
- Ange sued the President and federal officials, arguing the deployment exceeded constitutional and statutory war-powers limits, including the War Powers Clause and the War Powers Resolution.
- Ange also alleged the Army’s process for determining his medical suitability for deployment denied him Fifth Amendment procedural due process.
- Ange sought a preliminary injunction to prevent or reverse his deployment; the government moved to dismiss, and both sides sought summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether Ange’s war-powers challenge to the President’s deployment order presented a non-justiciable political question.
2. Whether the war-powers challenge was ripe for review before any full-scale hostilities and amid ongoing political branch activity.
3. Whether the Army’s procedures for evaluating and reviewing Ange’s medical fitness for deployment violated the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the war-powers/deployment claims as non-justiciable political questions and, independently, as not ripe.
- The court declined to reach the merits of whether the deployment violated the Constitution or the War Powers Resolution.
- The court granted summary judgment for defendants on Ange’s Fifth Amendment due process claim regarding medical suitability procedures.
- The court denied Ange’s motion for a preliminary injunction and granted defendants no-liability disposition on all claims.

## Legal Principles

- Claims that require courts to resolve certain allocation-of-war-powers disputes between Congress and the President may be barred by the political question doctrine, particularly where the Constitution commits the subject to the political branches and judicial standards are lacking.
- Pre-hostilities challenges to potential or threatened uses of force may be unripe when key facts and political-branch positions remain unsettled, making judicial intervention premature.
- In reviewing alleged procedural due process defects in military administrative processes, courts weigh the individual interest, the risk of erroneous deprivation and likely value of added procedures, and the government’s operational interests; substantial deference is given to military needs in deployment contexts.
- Summary judgment is appropriate where the plaintiff cannot show that the existing procedures are constitutionally inadequate under the due process balancing framework.

## Conclusion

The court refused to adjudicate a National Guardsman’s pre-hostilities war-powers challenge to a presidential deployment order on political-question and ripeness grounds, and it upheld the Army’s medical-fitness determination process as consistent with Fifth Amendment procedural due process.


Ange v. Bush, 752 F. Supp. 509 (D.D.C. 1990)