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The Department of Veterans Affairs applies a “benefit-of-the-doubt rule” that tips the scales in a veteran’s favor when evidence regarding any issue material to a service-related disability claim is in “approximate balance.”
The petitioners in this case are veterans who applied for service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder disability benefits and were dissatisfied with the VA’s resolution of their claims.
Joshua Bufkin claimed that his PTSD stemmed from his military service, but the VA found no clear link. Norman Thornton obtained service-connected PTSD disability benefits, but the VA denied his most recent request to increase his disability rating. These adverse determinations were reviewed de novo by the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, which rendered final decisions on behalf of the VA denying the claims.
Bufkin and Thornton then challenged the adverse determinations before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. The veterans court reviews legal issues de novo and factual issues for clear error. The Veterans Court must “take due account” of the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule. Applying those standards, the Veterans Court affirmed the VA’s adverse benefit determinations, finding that the board’s approximate-balance determinations were not clearly erroneous.
Bufkin and Thornton appealed to the federal circuit, challenging the veterans court’s legal interpretation of Section 7261(b)(1), and arguing that the statutory command to “take due account” of the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule requires the veterans court to review the entire record de novo and decide for itself whether the evidence is in approximate balance.
The federal circuit rejected this argument and affirmed.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the VA’s determination that the evidence regarding a service-related disability claim is in “approximate balance” is a predominantly factual determination reviewed only for clear error.
The court found that under Section 7261(b)(1)’s plain text, the Veterans Court must “take due account” of the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule. It noted this requirement directs the Veterans Court to give appropriate attention to the VA’s work. The veterans court must review the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule “[i]n making the determinations under subsection (a).”
The high court explained that the standards of review provided in subsection (a) also govern the Veterans Court’s review of benefit-of-the-doubt issues. Section 7261(b)(1) makes explicit the veterans court’s previously implicit duty to review the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule, pursuant to the standards set forth in subsection (a).
The Supreme Court noted that Bufkin and Thornton urged that by amending Section 7261(b)(1) to include the modest phrase, “take due account,” Congress imposed a new standard of review for challenges to the VA’s application of the benefit-of the-doubt rule. But the high court reasoned that had Congress intended to do so, it would have identified a standard, just as it did in Section 7261(a).
Bufkin and Thornton next argued that, even if Section 7261(b)(1) incorporates Section 7261(a)’s standards of review, the VA’s approximate-balance determination is much like a court’s probable-cause determination, which involves a mixed-question inquiry that appellate courts review de novo.
But the high court explained that two features distinguish the probable-cause determination from the VA’s determination here. First, probable cause is a constitutional standard, creating a strong presumption that determinations under that standard are subject to de novo review. By contrast, the approximate-balance determination is a creature of statute, not the Constitution. Second, probable cause poses a question that requires substantial “legal work,” but the VA’s approximate-balance determination lacks a comparable legal component.
Bufkin and Thornton also contended that the federal circuit’s reading of Section 7261(b)(1) renders the provision superfluous. While the Supreme Court noted its reading of Section 7261(b)(1) might involve some redundancy, the canon against surplusage doesn’t apply here because petitioners haven’t identified a competing interpretation that would avoid redundancy.
The high court affirmed the lower court’s decision.
Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito Jr, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Neil Gorsuch joined.
“Nothing about the text, context, or drafting history of subsection (b)(1) demonstrates that “take due account” actually means ‘proceed as normal,’” Jackson wrote in the dissenting opinion. “Reading the provision in that fashion, as the majority does, makes little sense.”
The dissenting justices asserted such an interpretation is inconsistent with how the court has treated identical language elsewhere in the same statute and that it renders meaningless the “take due account” command.
“The majority’s clear-error conclusion fares no better, insofar as its reasoning ignores what appellate courts do and what we have consistently said about substantially similar circumstances,” Jackson wrote.
“In short, the Court today concludes that Congress meant nothing when it inserted subsection (b)(1) in response to concerns that the Veterans Court was improperly rubberstamping the VA’s benefit-of-the-doubt determinations, and also that the Veterans Court is not obliged to do anything more than defer to those agency decisions notwithstanding Congress’s ‘take due account’ direction,” the dissenting justices asserted.