Bufkin v. Collins, Docket No. 23-713

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The heart of this case is a fine difference in how a veteran’s disability claim gets reviewed. When the Department of Veterans Affairs decides that evidence for a service-related injury is in “approximate balance,” that call is treated as mostly a factual finding. The Supreme Court said appeals courts must give deference to that factual decision; checking only for clear mistakes while still reviewing any legal questions from scratch. Petitioners had argued for a full, fresh look at all the evidence, but the Court rejected that. In practical terms, the VA’s tie-breaking “benefit-of-the-doubt” rule stands unless a court can point to a clear error.

Summary of the Case

Veterans Joshua Bufkin and Norman Thornton appealed adverse VA determinations of their service-connected PTSD claims. Bufkin, discharged for hardship, sought VA benefits for PTSD allegedly caused by marital distress in service; the VA denied service connection after three conflicting medical examinations. Thornton, already rated for PTSD and unemployability, sought an increase in his PTSD disability rating; the VA declined to impose more severe symptom findings. Both veterans petitioned the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, which applied the “benefit-of-the-doubt” rule and found that neither record was in “approximate balance,” so neither veteran prevailed. The Veterans Court affirmed applying a “[t]aking due account” standard. The Federal Circuit rejected arguments that “take due account” requires full de novo review of approximate-balance determinations. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the scope of the subsection defining "taking due account."

Opinion of the Court

Justice Thomas, writing for a seven-justice majority, held that "taking due account" simply directs the Veterans Court to apply established standards of review. Standards include de novo for legal issues and clear-error for factual issues, to the VA’s benefit-of-the-doubt determinations. The Court parsed the statute's language to “take due account” as an instruction to “give appropriate attention” to the VA’s work “in making the determinations under subsection (a).” Because the “approximate balance” inquiry comprises two steps—(1) assigning weight to individual pieces of evidence (a factual finding) and (2) determining whether the record as a whole meets the “approximate balance” legal standard—it is at most a mixed question. And where a question is predominantly factual, clear-error review is appropriate. The Court rejected analogies to constitutional probable-cause review or criminal sufficiency challenges, which pose principally legal questions warranting de novo review, and found this matter to have considered the essential information.

Dissenting Opinions

Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Gorsuch, dissented. She argued that § 7261(b)(1) was intended to counteract the Veterans Court’s historically deferential handling of benefit-of-the-doubt issues and to require independent, nondeferential review of those determinations. According to the dissent, deciding whether evidence is in “approximate balance” poses a mixed question of law and fact analogous to probable-cause or sufficiency inquiries and thus demands de novo review. She viewed the majority’s reading as rendering subsection (b)(1) superfluous and at odds with Congress’s amendment.

Nuance of the Law

At issue is the interplay among (1) the VA’s statutory “benefit-of-the-doubt” rule, which entitles a veteran to favorable resolution when record evidence is in “approximate balance”; (2) the Veterans Court’s basic review standards; and (3) § 7261(b)(1), which commands the Veterans Court to “take due account” of the VA’s application of § 5107(b). The Court’s holding delineates that challenges to the VA’s benefit-of-the-doubt determinations must be reviewed under the same standards used for other issues under § 7261(a): factual weight assignments are reviewed for clear error, whereas purely legal questions remain subject to de novo review. This preserves Congress’s pro-veteran policy by ensuring that Veterans Courts give due attention to the VA’s benefit-of-the-doubt work without upending the established standard-of-review framework.