Hi all;
Long story short, after an eight-year fight my husband was offered partial relief, which means medical retirement (40%) vs an involuntary separation. Yay! We were super excited!
Full relief would have been longevity retirement after an unlawful separation. So even though the ultimate end result in both cases is my husband being retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, the difference is hundreds of thousands of dollars in backpay plus approximately $2,000/month in pension.
Our attorney gives us a "better than even" chance that we might prevail in court. (We went to the court of federal claims, but it was remanded, twice, and on the second remand, the AF offered the medical retirement). To be quite honest, it seems as if they are settling. They know they're at fault in part, and don't want to risk getting their asses handed to them again like they did in the Roe/Voe case.
The risk of pursuing full relief back in court, however, is the possiblity, however remote, that the Court might again remand it back to the AFBCMR, who could then possibly rescind the offer of the medical retirement just offered. Has anybody ever heard of a service reneging an offer of partial relief if a service member pursued full relief above their heads? Trying to wager the odds of this happening. If we go for it, and win, it would be a big win (financially speaking), but the risk of losing what we already have been granted is not inconsequential.
Long story short, after an eight-year fight my husband was offered partial relief, which means medical retirement (40%) vs an involuntary separation. Yay! We were super excited!
Full relief would have been longevity retirement after an unlawful separation. So even though the ultimate end result in both cases is my husband being retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, the difference is hundreds of thousands of dollars in backpay plus approximately $2,000/month in pension.
Our attorney gives us a "better than even" chance that we might prevail in court. (We went to the court of federal claims, but it was remanded, twice, and on the second remand, the AF offered the medical retirement). To be quite honest, it seems as if they are settling. They know they're at fault in part, and don't want to risk getting their asses handed to them again like they did in the Roe/Voe case.
The risk of pursuing full relief back in court, however, is the possiblity, however remote, that the Court might again remand it back to the AFBCMR, who could then possibly rescind the offer of the medical retirement just offered. Has anybody ever heard of a service reneging an offer of partial relief if a service member pursued full relief above their heads? Trying to wager the odds of this happening. If we go for it, and win, it would be a big win (financially speaking), but the risk of losing what we already have been granted is not inconsequential.
