Richard Reiter v. Troy Meink

── Richard Reiter v. Troy Meink ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: April 17, 2026 Category: General NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0177n.06 Case No. 25-5410 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Apr 17, 2026 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk RICHARD B. REITER, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE Plaintiff - Appellant, ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE MIDDLE v. ) DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE ) ) DR. TROY E. MEINK, Secretary of the Air ) OPINION Force ) Defendant - Appellee. ) Before: CLAY, McKEAGUE, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges. McKEAGUE, Circuit Judge. Richard B. Reiter filed this lawsuit against the Secretary of the United States Air Force1 after he was denied a promotion. Reiter claims the Air Force violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it rejected his attempts to correct a record in his personnel file, and then relied on this allegedly erroneous record to deny his promotion. The district court ruled for the Secretary. Seeing no error, we AFFIRM. 1 Reiter originally filed this suit against Frank Kendall III in his official capacity as the Secretary of the Air Force. Both parties agree that Dr. Troy E. Meink, the current Secretary of the Air Force, is now the proper defendant. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d). No. 25-5410, Reiter v. Meink I. BACKGROUND Reiter served in the Air Force from December 27, 1993, to August 31, 1998. He then joined the Air Force Reserves. In 2016, while serving as a Judge Advocate within the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps, Reiter was eligible for a potential promotion. Per the Air Force’s promotion process, Lieutenant General Stayce Harris served as Reiter’s Senior Rater. In that capacity, Harris filled out a Promotion Recommendation Form (“Recommendation Form”) for Reiter and submitted it to the Air Force Reserve Line and Nonline Colonel Promotion Selection Board (“Promotion Board”), the entity that would approve or reject Reiter’s promotion. Air Force regulations require a Senior Rater to provide the ratee a copy of the submitted Recommendation Form before the Promotion Board makes a decision. So when Reiter received a Recommendation Form in the mail (that bore what appeared to be Harris’s signature) ranking him as the top candidate for promotion, he was expecting to hear good news. Instead, he soon learned that he was not selected for the promotion. He also learned that the Recommendation Form submitted to the Promotion Board was different than the one he received in the mail—it listed Reiter as the second choice for promotion rather than the first. A. First Attempt To Correct Recommendation Form Reiter went to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records (“Correction Board”) for a remedy. He requested the Air Force convene a Special Selection Board to reconsider his candidacy using the version of the Recommendation Form that he received (which listed him as the top candidate for promotion) rather than the version the Promotion Board received (which listed him as the second choice). The Correction Board s