Retired Captain Sues the Army Over Paperwork Error that Cost Him Two Promotions

This may be one of the greatest screw over jobs I have seen a Soldier receive due to an administrative error, he went from early promotion of Lieutentant Colonel to retired as a Captain:

When the Army selected Ronald Schow for an early promotion to lieutenant colonel in 2011, service officials realized they made a mistake five years earlier. Schow’s previous promotion to major had never been submitted to the Senate for confirmation, as required by law. His name had been left off the list that the Army sent to Congress in October 2006. Yet, the Army still sent Schow a promotion order that he and his unit believed to be accurate, and he was pinned with a major’s golden oak leaf on the chest of his uniform. Eventually, the Army decided to revoke the rank and return Schow to a captain — the rank at which he retired in 2017 after years of trying to rectify the error.

After exhausting all administrative options to gain a major’s retirement pay, Schow filed a lawsuit last year in Federal Claims Court to get $180,000 in back pay and retirement pay that he would have received if he had retired as a major. However, he said he’s not able to sue for negligence that led to lost earnings from not being promoted to lieutenant colonel because of the limitations service members have in suing the military.

A Supreme Court decision known as the Feres Doctrine blocks troops from suing for anything that occurred to them in the military that is related to their service. “It was terrible. Everyone thought this was an administrative issue, but it turned out to be a legal issue. There’s no precedent for demoting an officer without kicking [him or her] out of the Army,” said Schow, who lives in Indiana and is representing himself in court. “Not only did we lose money during the years where I got demoted, we lost money during the years where I should have been promoted. And to be honest, it’s affected my post-retirement prospects.”

Stars & Stripes

You need to read the whole thing at the link to understand the context of what happened. Basically one guy at Human Resources Command being sick led to the paperwork error that led to for some reason no one in the Army being able to fix. You would think this would be something a Congress person would dig into to rectify.