Justices Allow Veterans to Seek Disability From VA

In a $1-billion setback for the government, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that veterans who emerge injured or paralyzed from a Veterans Administration hospital are entitled to disability pay, even if the hospital itself was not at fault.

On a 9-0 vote, the justices reversed a 60-year-old regulation in which the veterans agency said it would not pay benefits unless a patient was injured because of “negligence, carelessness (or) lack of proper skill” by VA doctors.

The ruling is good news for about 8,000 vets who claim they suffered because of their treatment at a VA hospital, but were unable to show the hospital was at fault.

“That’s super news,” said Jerry Lodl, a 60-year-old Korean War veteran from Ventura who was paralyzed after a 1967 back operation at the VA hospital in Long Beach.

Lodl said his claims for disability benefits have been rejected because he could not prove the hospital erred in treating him.

In Monday’s ruling, the high court said veterans such as Lodl are due disability benefits because the original 1924 law establishing such benefits gave veterans an open-ended, no-fault entitlement to compensation if they “suffered an injury, or an aggravation of an injury, as the result of hospitalization, medical or surgical treatment.”

There is not “so much as a word about fault on the part of VA” in the law, said Justice David H. Souter, speaking for the court.

Monday’s ruling was striking on two counts.

Normally, the conservative-leaning court is inclined to defer to government agencies, especially when a large amount of money is at stake. In this case, government lawyers argued it is absurd to force the Veterans Affairs Department to pay compensation for an injury its doctors did not cause.

Nonetheless, all the justices concluded the “plain language” of the law required the payment.

Second, the ruling demonstrates the impact of a 1988 law that, for the first time, gave veterans a chance to appeal agency rulings in the federal courts.

The case arose when Fred Gardner, a Korea veteran, entered a VA hospital in Texas in 1986 for treatment of leg pain that was unrelated to a service injury. After back surgery, he emerged from the hospital with continuing leg pain. He sought benefits for a partial disability, but was turned down because of the VA regulation requiring him to show the hospital was at fault.

But the still relatively new Court of Veterans Appeals reversed the agency’s decision and threw out its regulation. Clinton Administration lawyers appealed to the high court in the case of Jesse Brown vs. Fred Gardner, 93-1128, and estimated that a ruling in the veterans’ favor would cost the agency an extra $1 billion over the next five years.

In other actions, the court:

* Ruled that states can tax income that people receive from some mutual funds that invest in U.S. government securities. Normally, these securities cannot be taxed by states, but the court said it was different if mutual funds buy the securities in “repurchase agreements.” Nebraska vs. Loewenstein, 93-823.

* Let stand a ruling that makes paramedics eligible for overtime pay. Federal law says workers must receive overtime after 40 hours a week, but makes an exception for firefighters and law enforcement personnel. In an unsuccessful appeal in Chicago vs. Alex, 94-704, the city said its paramedics should be considered firefighters.

* Refused to hear a further appeal from anti-abortion activists who claimed they could not be sued under the federal anti-racketeering act. (Scheidler vs. Delaware Woman’s Health Organization, 94-716).