## Facts

- Congress enacted the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944, granting federal employment preferences to “preference eligibles,” including certain “ex-servicemen.”
- Cohen (War Department employee) and Hubickey (Navy Department employee) performed part-time, temporary service in the Coast Guard Reserve’s Volunteer Port Security Force during World War II and claimed veterans’ preference.
- Volunteer Port Security Force members took an oath and were enrolled for the duration of the war, subject to earlier termination by Coast Guard authority.
- Members were generally required to perform at least 12 hours of active duty per week; duty schedules were arranged to accommodate civilian jobs, and members typically remained in their home cities unless they consented to transfer.
- Service was largely nonmilitary in compensation and benefits: members generally did not receive regular military pay and allowances, were treated like civilian employees for injury or death benefits, were ineligible for National Service Life Insurance, and received certificates of disenrollment rather than military discharges.
- Cohen was discharged in a reduction in force, and Hubickey was notified of impending discharge; both asserted veterans’ preference would affect retention and reduction-in-force treatment.
- The Civil Service Commission denied preference eligibility for this part-time service, but the district court and the D.C. Circuit held the respondents were “ex-servicemen” entitled to preference.

## Issues

1. Whether temporary, part-time service in the Volunteer Port Security Force qualifies an individual as an “ex-serviceman” under § 2 of the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944.
2. Whether such individuals obtained vested preference rights under § 18 of the 1944 Act based on a prior Civil Service Commission interpretation under earlier preference statutes.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit.
- Part-time service in the Volunteer Port Security Force did not make respondents “ex-servicemen” entitled to veterans’ preference under the 1944 Act.
- The Court construed “ex-servicemen” to cover only those who performed full-time active duty with military pay and allowances and whose service substantially disrupted their normal economic and social life.
- Respondents did not acquire vested preference rights under § 18 solely from the Civil Service Commission’s earlier administrative position, particularly where the claimant had not disenrolled when the 1944 Act became law.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory veterans’ preference turns on Congress’s definition of “ex-servicemen,” not on broad analogies to patriotic or auxiliary wartime service.
- Under the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944, “ex-servicemen” is limited to persons who performed full-time active duty, received military pay and allowances, and experienced substantial disruption of civilian economic and social life.
- Part-time, locally confined, convenience-scheduled service with predominantly civilian-type compensation and benefits is insufficient to confer veterans’ preference.
- Administrative interpretations under prior statutes do not, by themselves, create vested preference rights that carry into a later statutory scheme absent satisfaction of the later statute’s requirements.

## Conclusion

The Court denied veterans’ preference to employees whose wartime Coast Guard Reserve service was temporary and part-time, holding that the 1944 Act’s “ex-servicemen” category covers only full-time active-duty military service with military compensation and substantial displacement from civilian life, and that prior agency practice could not vest contrary rights under the new statute.


Mitchell v. Cohen, 333 U.S. 411 (1948)