Anita S. Krishnakumar is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a VA benefits decision that was based on an agency regulation in effect at the time the decision was rendered does not constitute “clear and unmistakable error” even if the agency regulation is later deemed to conflict with the text of the relevant benefits statute.
The justices on Tuesday delved into a dispute that may seem abstract: How should the “clear and unmistakable error” standard apply when military veterans seek to overturn certain decisions that denied them disability benefits?
Since Congress first established it in 1930, the Department of Veterans Affairs has administered a federal program that provides various benefits to U.S. military veterans.
Anita S. Krishnakumar is the Mary C. Daly Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship at St. John’s University School of Law. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt has received significant attention for its overruling of Nevada v. Hall, a 40-year-old precedent that held that states lack sovereign immunity in each other’s courts.
Anita S. Krishnakumar is a professor of law and the associate dean for faculty scholarship at St. John’s University School of Law. Substantive canons of statutory construction — such as the rule of lenity or the canon of constitutional avoidance — sometimes play a pivotal role in the Supreme Court’s statutory interpretation cases.