Denied a Med Board? Recent Fighter Pilot Case Explains How BCMRs Can Grant Disability Retirement When Leadership Refuses

A military man works at a desk

Meyer v. United States: An F-16 pilot forced to fly a desk, armed with a waiver for a nonexistent aircraft, ultimately secured medical retirement after leaving service—because the law doesn’t let the military (or the BCMR) dodge disability processing by swapping mission duty for admin work.

When the military properly uses the Disability Evaluation System (“DES”), it answers three questions in a structured, rules-based way: (1) fit or unfit, (2) if unfit, separate or medically retire, and (3) whether the condition is combat-related. Meyer v. United States is a recent case that explains—cleanly and candidly—what happens when the Service doesn’t abide by that system, and how a service member can force accountability through the BCMR and, if necessary, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Senior Judge Smith summarized the DES trigger in plain language that every service member (and every command) can understand:

“The relevant criteria for entering a service member into DES is simple: he must be injured to the point he cannot perform his military specialty for one year.”¹

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Meyer, an Air Force Reserve F-16 fighter pilot, met that standard. The Air Force still did not send him to DES.²

The facts: a solo F-16 sortie, an injury under heavy G, and permanent grounding

On February 5, 2018, Lt. Col. Meyer was flying a “solo Air Combat maneuvering sortie” under a “heavy gravitational load” when he felt a “pop” in his neck and a “feeling of fire” that radiated down his right arm into his hand.³ He landed safely, but his commander immediately placed him on DNIF status (Duties Not Including Flying).⁴ The injury was determined to be in the line of duty (LOD).⁵

The medical story is familiar to anyone who has experienced DES avoidance in real life: he was moved into a nonflying/staff position while the command simultaneously recognized that he remained non-deployable, not mission capable, and unable to meet readiness standards for extended periods. Meyer was diagnosed with serious cervical pathology and remained medically restricted for months.⁶ By February 2019, he was medically disqualified, terminated from aviation service, and his commander assessed he would never regain wartime mission capability.⁷ In July 2019, an Aeromedical Summary made the prognosis unavoidable: his condition improved, but “not to a point that he will ever be able to resume flight activities in a high G aircraft,” and it was “clear that he will not be able to fly a[n] [F-16] viper again.”⁸

The Air Force’s prescreen system: IRILO (and why it matters)

Air Force cases often turn on a prescreen step known as the IRILO.

In Meyer, the court explains that if an Airman has a condition rendering him unable to deploy or causing a mobility restriction for 365 days or longer, he must undergo an Initial Review-In-Lieu-Of (“IRILO”), “which serves as his IDES pre-screen.”⁹ The IRILO is triggered when the Airman receives a diagnosis “which does not meet retention standards for continued military service,” and the trigger event is reviewed by the DAWG (Disability Advisory Working Group), which decides whether the member needs to go before an MEB (and ultimately the PEB), or whether to dismiss the case.¹⁰

That prescreen matters because it is one of the mechanisms Services can use—properly or improperly—to stop a DES case before it ever becomes a full MEB/PEB record.

A revealing fact: the Air Force created a waiver for an aircraft that didn’t exist

The opinion includes a detail that should make every reader pause, because it demonstrates how far leadership can be willing to go to ensure “fitness” is maintained on paper without restoring meaningful performance of the member’s actual specialty.

The court explained:

“Lt. Col. Meyer’s FC-IIC waiver for a ‘non-high performance, non-ejection seat, multiplace fighter aircraft’ was for an aircraft that did not exist, and thus Lt. Col. Meyer was ‘not able to do his duty as an 11F.’”¹¹

That is an extraordinary sentence in a federal opinion, and it captures the central pathology in many DES-avoidance cases: the system substitutes a paper workaround for actual disability adjudication.

The AFBCMR denial—and the legal problem with “but he could do staff work”

After retiring, Meyer petitioned the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records (“AFBCMR”) to correct his record to reflect DES processing and disability retirement, and he also requested a combat-related determination.¹² The Board denied relief. Even while acknowledging he could no longer fly the F-16, it concluded he could perform “all tasks integral to a Command Staff position,” and it did not touch the "combat-related" issue.¹³

The Court of Federal Claims rejected the logic that admin tasks on limited duty are a substitute for a legal fitness inquiry. It stressed that Meyer’s “main duties as a fighter pilot in a fighter squadron were to fly F-16s, something he could not do.”¹⁴ And it relied on precedent that a member’s “ability to perform administrative tasks as part of a limited duty assignment is insufficient for a fitness determination.”¹⁵

The core legal holding: “office, grade, rank, or rating” is disjunctive

The government tried to salvage the AFBCMR’s approach with the argument that “office, grade, rank, or rating” should be read "holistically"—so inability to perform the rating (here, F-16 pilot) shouldn’t matter if the member can perform some duties in another category. The court rejected that interpretation.

The court stated:

“Each term has an individual meaning and therefore an individual basis for which a service member may be found unfit.”¹⁶

In other words, the Service cannot avoid the DES simply because it can find some task somewhere that the member can still do. If the member cannot reasonably perform the duties of the rating/specialty he is trained and assigned to perform, that can independently support unfitness. The court explained why this matters: if the government’s “holistic” view were accepted, “service branches could disqualify service members from DES if there were any duties within any category they could perform.”

BCMR authority “in the first instance” (and what that actually means)

Meyer is particularly useful because it connects the DES failure to a doctrine correction boards often underuse: the BCMR is not limited to “appellate” review of what an MEB/PEB already did.

The court quoted the governing principle this way:

“Boards of correction may make ‘a disability determination in the first instance’ when a PEB is not convened.”¹⁷

That phrase—“in the first instance”—means the correction board is competent to decide entitlement even when the Service never produced a full DES record. That principle comes from the Federal Circuit’s decision in Sawyer v. United States, which rejected the notion that the BCNR is confined to an appellate role. The Federal Circuit held the Claims Court “unduly restricted” BCNR authority by treating it as appellate-only after disability boards act, because BCNR regulations “contemplate that it will find facts and not act only as an appellate forum.”¹⁸ In disability cases, Sawyer makes the rule explicit: “either the review boards or the correction board is competent to make a disability determination in the first instance.”¹⁹

For record-correction practice, this is the key bridge: when a Service “skips” the DES, the BCMR is not supposed to shrug and say “no PEB, no relief.” It is supposed to correct the record to reflect the disposition the member should have received—based on the evidence.

The regulatory backbone for the court’s “one year” simplification

The court’s simple framing reflects settled DoD policy. Under DoDI 1332.18, medical authorities will refer eligible Service members into the DES—“within 1 year of diagnosis”—when they have medical conditions that may prevent reasonable performance of duties of “office, grade, rank, or rating,” including duties remaining on a Reserve obligation for more than one year after diagnosis.²⁰

That regulatory structure matters in practice because it gives a clean way to apply facts to law: (1) diagnosis, (2) functional impact on duties, and (3) duration (predictable course or within 1 year; referral within 1 year once criteria met).

Combat-related determinations: why Meyer matters for CRSC (and who decides what)

Meyer also pressed for a combat-related finding. The record showed even the Air Force medical advisor ultimately amended his view and opined that “the criteria of aerial flight, airborne operations and caused by a military weapon are irrefutable.”²¹ Yet the AFBCMR still failed to reach the combat-related issue.²²

DoDI 1332.18 defines when a disability is considered combat-related: it must make the member unfit or contribute to unfitness, and the evidence must show it was incurred (among other categories) “while engaged in hazardous service” (expressly including aerial flight duty) or “caused by an instrumentality of war,” including “accidents involving a military combat vehicle,” with a required “direct causal relationship” between the instrumentality and the disability.²³

Why does this matter beyond the DES itself? Because “combat-related” classification often becomes a critical factual foundation for Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) claims. CRSC is a statutory program (10 U.S.C. § 1413a) adjudicated by Service CRSC processes, not by the VA. But in real practice, the quality of the record matters. A corrected record that properly documents combat-related causation (especially in aviation mishaps and high-risk duty) can substantially strengthen a future CRSC submission, even if the CRSC board is the final decisionmaker.

Meyer drives home a basic point: if a petitioner squarely requests a combat-related determination—and the record supports it—the BCMR may not treat adjudicating that issue as optional.

How parallel adverse actions can legally stop DES processing

Finally, Meyer is a useful springboard for a broader truth: Services do not just avoid disability retirement in difficult cases; they sometimes rely on rules that treat pending adverse actions as bars to DES referral.

DoDI 1332.18 states that Service members are ineligible for referral to the DES when, among other things:

  • “The Service member is pending an approved, unsuspended punitive, or administrative discharge or dismissal….”²⁴
  • “The Service member is pending separation in accordance with provisions that authorize a characterization of service of under other than honorable conditions….”²⁵

It also includes a “condition not a disability” gate that can become pivotal in CND separations: a member is ineligible for referral when the member has a “condition, circumstance, or defect of a developmental nature, not constituting a physical disability….”²⁶

And yet—importantly for equity arguments—DoDI 1332.18 contains a built-in safety valve: “the Secretaries of the Military Departments should evaluate for disability those Service members who would be ineligible… due to [pending punitive/admin discharge or pending OTH separation] when the medical impairment condition or disability evaluation is warranted as a matter of equity or good conscience.”²⁷

Put differently: Services sometimes treat UCMJ / ADSEP / CND tracks as “off-ramps” from the DES. But the governing instruction is not a blank check to bypass disability evaluation when equity and good conscience require it.

Key Meyer takeaways

Meyer is valuable because it plainly connects facts (a fighter pilot permanently unable to fly high-G aircraft) to first principles of the DES, military regulations, BCMR authority, and federal judicial review:

  1. Fitness must be tied to actual duty requirements—not convenient staff tasks.
  2. The standards for “office, grade, rank, or rating” cannot be diluted into a “holistic” loophole.
  3. The BCMR has authority to decide retroactive entitlement “in the first instance” when the Service never convenes a PEB.
  4. Combat-related determinations may not be brushed aside; they can materially affect downstream compensation, and BCMRs must address them.

Take the Next Step:

If you believe you were denied a proper disability evaluation, separated without the process you were entitled to, or wrongfully denied medical retirement, our firm helps service members and veterans pursue record corrections and pay-connected remedies. You can learn more by visiting our website and setting up a free consultation. One of our attorneys will be happy to guide you through the process and explain what options you should consider to ensure your rights are protected.

References

  1. Meyer v. United States, No. 24-480, slip op. at 1 (Fed. Cl. Jan. 7, 2026).
  2. Id. at 1–2.
  3. Id. at 3.
  4. Id.
  5. Id.
  6. Id. at 3–4.
  7. Id. at 3–4.
  8. Id. at 4.
  9. Id. at 3.
  10. Id. (citing AFMAN 41-210, ¶¶ 4.49.1.1, 4.49.2).
  11. Id. at 11.
  12. Id. at 5.
  13. Id. at 6.
  14. Id. at 11.
  15. Id. at 9 (citing Nyan v. United States, 153 Fed. Cl. 234, 242–43 (2021)).
  16. Meyer, No. 24-480, slip op. at 8–9.
  17. Id. at 8 (quoting Ford v. United States, 172 Fed. Cl. 300, 311 (2024), quoting Sawyer v. United States, 930 F.2d 1577, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1991)).
  18. Sawyer v. United States, 930 F.2d 1577, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (citing 32 C.F.R. § 723.6(a)(3), (c) (1990)).
  19. Id. at 1582.
  20. DoDI 1332.18, Disability Evaluation System, ¶¶ 5.2(a)(1), 5.2(b) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  21. Meyer, No. 24-480, slip op. at 5.
  22. Id. at 6.
  23. DoDI 1332.18, ¶ 10.2(b)(2), (4) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  24. DoDI 1332.18, ¶ 5.4(a)(2) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  25. DoDI 1332.18, ¶ 5.4(a)(3) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  26. DoDI 1332.18, ¶ 5.4(a)(1) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  27. DoDI 1332.18, ¶ 5.4(b) (Nov. 10, 2022).
  28. 10 U.S.C. § 1413a.