March 2025 - SCOTUS

Featuring: Burfkin v. Collins

Bufkin v. Collins, 23-713 | Decided on March 5, 2025

Pursuant to 38 U.S.C. § 5107(b), when, after consideration of all evidence and material on record, there is an approximate balance of positive and negative evidence regarding the merits of an issue, the benefit of the doubt shall be given to the claimant. This is often referred to as the benefit of the doubt rule and it applies to any veteran’s claim when evidence regarding any issue material to a service-related disability claim is in approximate balance. In this case, the Board determined that the evidence was not in approximate balance and therefore the benefit of the doubt rule did not apply. Under 38 U.S.C. § 7261(a), the Veterans Court reviews legal issues de novo and factual issues for clear error. And under §7261(b)(1), the Veterans Court must “take due account” of the VA’s application of the benefit-of-the-doubt rule.

Petitioners contended that VA’s determination that the evidence on a particular material issue is not in approximate balance is a legal inquiry subject to de novo review. SCOTUS disagreed, holding that approximate balance determinations require case-specific factual review warranting clear-error review. Elaborating, SCOTUS held that the approximate-balance determination involves two steps. First, VA reviews each item of evidence and assigns weight to it, which is purely a factfinding inquiry reviewed only for clear error. Second, VA determines whether the evidence is in approximate balance. As this step includes both legal and factual components it is at most a mixed question and the appropriate standard of review for a mixed question depends “on whether answering it entails primarily legal or factual work.”