10 U.S.C. § 621
Section 621 · Competitive categories for promotion
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case Fluellen v. United States (1999)
Most recently applied in Gilbert v. James (September 2015)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of each military department shall establish competitive categories for promotion. Each officer whose name appears on an active-duty list shall be carried in a competitive category of officers. Officers in the same competitive category shall compete among themselves for promotion.