Dickson v. National Transportation Safety Board

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) denied Newton Dickson’s application for a first-class airman medical certificate because he had a history of “disturbance of consciousness without satisfactory medical explanation” or “other seizure disorder, disturbance of consciousness, or neurologic condition.” With respect to one of the incidents that led the FAA to this conclusion — an incident aboard a passenger-carrying Boeing 757 — the best that Dickson’s own medical expert could say was that “the much more likely…