Latest 2 Cases This Week: Jones v. Wilkie (Fed. Cir.), Sellers v. Wilkie (Fed. Cir.)

The Future of Faithless Electors and the National Popular Vote Compact: Part Two in a Two-Part Series

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

In this second of a two-part series of columns about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the “faithless elector cases, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar describes some good news that we may glean from those cases. Specifically, Amar points out that states have many ways of reducing elector faithlessness, and he lists three ways in which the Court’s decision paves the way for advances in the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact movement.

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Impoverishing Women: Supreme Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Religious and Moral Exemptions to Contraceptive Mandate

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the Trump administration’s religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Grossman provides a brief history of the conflict over the growing politicization of contraception in the United States and argues that the exemptions at issue in this case should never have been promulgated in the first place because they have no support in science or public policy.

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Jones v. Wilkie

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Docket: 18-2376

Opinion Date: July 15, 2020

Judge: William Curtis Bryson

Areas of Law: Military Law, Public Benefits

Jones served on active duty with the Army in 1967-1974 and in the Army National Guard in 1987-1990. In 1994, he sought disability benefits for a nervous disorder and a leg wound. A VA regional office granted service connection for a leg scar but found that disability non-compensable and denied the claim for a nervous condition. Jones did not appeal. In 2002, Jones filed a request to reopen his claim, asserting that he was assaulted by muggers while stationed in Germany, which resulted in his developing PTSD. The regional office denied his request. In 2008, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals granted the request to reopen, directing the regional office to obtain additional information from two individuals with knowledge of the assault. In 2010, the regional office granted Jones service connection for PTSD and a schizoaffective disorder, with a 100% disability rating effective from October 2002, when he sought to reopen his claim. Jones sought to have the effective date made retroactive to 1994. In 2016, after Jones’s death, the Board held that the effective date was 2002. The Veterans Court and the Federal Circuit affirmed, citing 38 C.F.R. 3.156(c); the decision in Jones’s favor was based on evidence created in 2003 and 2008, which did not exist in 1994.

Sellers v. Wilkie

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Docket: 19-1769

Opinion Date: July 15, 2020

Judge: Raymond Charles Clevenger, III

Areas of Law: Military Law, Public Benefits

Sellers served in the Navy in 1964-1968, and in the Army, 1981-1996. He suffers from major depressive disorder (MDD). Sellers has a 2009 effective date for his disability benefits. He seeks an effective date of March 1996, the date of his formal claim seeking compensation for specific injuries to his leg, knee, back, finger, and ears. On his application, under “Remarks,” Sellers wrote “Request for s/c [service connection] for disabilities occurring during active duty service.” Sellers contends that the law in effect in 1996 requires his remarks to be understood as a claim for compensation for his MDD, although his claim in no way refers to MDD. The Veterans Court agreed with Sellers. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs challenged that decision. The Federal Circuit reversed, finding that Sellers is not entitled to an earlier effective date. A legally sufficient formal claim must identify, at least at a high level of generality, the current condition upon which the veteran’s claim is based. The Secretary’s duty to assist begins upon receipt of a formal claim that identifies the medical condition for which benefits are sought, which triggers the Secretary’s duty to obtain the veteran’s medical records, 38 U.S.C. 5103A(c)(1)(A), and then to fully develop the stated claim. Until the Secretary comprehends the condition on which the claim is based, the Secretary does not know where to begin to develop the claim.