Supreme Court to weigh veterans' disability denials, affecting 'untold numbers' of vets
Source: USA Today
Published 5:13 a.m. ET Oct. 16, 2024 | Updated 5:13 a.m. ET Oct. 2024
WASHINGTON − Norman Thornton, a veteran of the first Gulf War, thinks the government owes him bigger disability payments for his PTSD. Joshua Bufkin was denied post-traumatic stress disorder benefits after leaving the Air Force because doctors didn’t agree whether he qualified. Both sought a review of their claims from a special veterans court - which sided against them.
Now the Supreme Court is considering how the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims should review benefit denials and how to ensure decisions are tipped in a veteran’s favor when there are close calls. The issue the justices are taking up Wednesday could have “profound implications for untold numbers of veterans,” lawyers for Thornton and Bufkin said in a legal filing about the disability determinations made by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“VA often errs in benefits adjudications, and the difference between an award and a denial has life-altering consequences for disabled veterans,” the lawyers wrote. The challengers have the backing of several veterans’ groups who argue that veterans have been entitled to the benefit of the doubt for service-connected disability payments for more than a century. And Congress has twice stepped in to ensure that happens.
In 1988, Congress created the Veterans Court to review disputed determinations and codified the requirement that scales should be tipped in favor of the veteran in close cases. But veterans’ groups complained that the new court was being too deferential to the VA when reviewing the agency’s decisions.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/10/16/supreme-court-veterans-benefit-disability/75674403007/
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