Law enforcement officers and firefighters are entitled to an enhanced retirement annuity assuming they meet the definitions of those terms and serve in covered positions for 20 years. In Canoles v. Department of the Air Force, Fed. Cir. No. 03-3242 (April 22, 2004), the employee was hired from outside the federal government into a supervisory firefighter position without having served in the federal government as a primary firefighter. When he resigned from the federal government, he requested retirement credit under the firefighter provisions of the retirement code, 5 USC sec. 8331. Enhanced retirement credit was denied by OPM and the employee appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The MSPB upheld the denial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed.
The court found that to qualify for an enhanced retirement annuity, an employee must either retire from a
