The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against two veterans who said their disability claims were improperly dismissed, even though the evidence in their cases was evenly split.
The court ruled 7-2 that the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims doesn’t have to look at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ application of the “benefit-of-the-doubt” criterion in most cases. Military.com said that the rule says the VA has to approve a veteran’s claim when the evidence for and against approval is about the same.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote for the majority, made it clear that the VA claims court and the Federal Circuit Court, which sustained the lower court’s ruling, did not have to complete a benefit-of-the-doubt assessment in these situations.
The publication said that Thomas’s decision on March 5 said that the claims court only had to look for mistakes made by the claims adjudicators or the Board of Veterans Appeals.
Thomas stated, “We believe that the Veterans Court should look at the VA’s application of the rule in the same way it would any other decision: by looking at legal issues [from the beginning] and factual issues for clear error.”
Two veterans argued their case in Bufkin v. Collins. Joshua Bufkin served in the Air Force from 2005 to 2006. About seven years after leaving the service, he submitted a disability claim for post-traumatic stress disorder. He had trouble finishing the training he needed to become a military policeman because of tension in his marriage. Bufkin asked for a hardship discharge because his wife said she would kill herself if he stayed in the service, according to court papers.
Bufkin said that his problems were caused by his time in the military when he later sought for VA healthcare and compensation. But his claim was turned down because VA doctors disagreed on both his PTSD diagnosis and how it was linked to his service.
Norman Thornton was a soldier in the Army from 1988 to 1991 and served in the Persian Gulf War from 1990 to 1991. He first got a 10% disability rating for PTSD, but that was later boosted to 50%. Thornton appealed, saying that his rating should have been much higher.
In both cases, the Veterans Board of Appeals looked at the evidence and decided that Bufkin’s evidence was inconsistent and that Thornton’s evidence did not support a higher disability rating.
The Veterans Court of Appeals eventually said that the claims adjudicators and the board had done everything right, but it did not complete a benefit-of-the-doubt examination. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals also agreed on appeal that this kind of examination was not needed.
The plaintiffs told the Supreme Court that the law clearly says that veterans should get the benefit of the doubt. Thomas, on the other hand, said that they did not make a legal case because the veterans court can only change a ruling if there is a clear mistake.
Thomas stated, “After closely looking at how the VA does the approximate balance inquiry [of benefit-of-the-doubt evidence], we conclude that it is mostly a factual question and is therefore open to clear-error review.”
Military.com said that Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch disagreed. Jackson, who disagreed, said that Congress meant for veterans to have “any reasonable doubt on a material issue” answered in their favor.
Brown wrote, “The court today concludes that Congress meant nothing when it added [to the law] 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.” “I disagree with respect.”
The judges said they took the case to see if the Veterans Court had to look at the VA’s use of the benefit of the doubt in more than just looking for mistakes. Most people agreed that it is not necessary in most circumstances.
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