Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
ARELLANO v. MCDONOUGH, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT
No. 21–432. Argued October 4, 2022—Decided January 23, 2023
This case concerns the effective date of an award of disability compensation to a veteran of the United States military. Approximately 30 years after Adolfo Arellano’s honorable discharge from the Navy, Arellano applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for disability compensation based on his psychiatric disorders. A VA regional office granted Arellano service-connected disability benefits after finding that his disorders resulted from trauma that he suffered while serving on an aircraft carrier. Applying the default rule in 38 U. S. C. §5110(a)(1), the VA assigned an effective date of June 3, 2011—the day that the agency received his claim—to Arellano’s disability award. Arellano appealed, arguing that his award’s effective date should be governed by an exception in §5110(b)(1), which makes “[t]he effective date of an award of disability compensation … the day following the date of the veteran’s discharge or release if application therefor is received within one year from such date of discharge or release.” Alleging that he had been too ill to know that he could apply for disability benefits, Arellano maintained that this exception’s 1-year grace period should be equitably tolled to make his award effective on or about the day after his discharge from military service in 1981. The VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals denied Arellano’s request, and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed. The Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment.
Held: Section 5110(b)(1) is not subject to equitable tolling. Pp. 3–11.
Section 5110(b)(1) operates as a limited exception to §5110(a)(1)’s default rule, which states that “the effective date of an award … shall be fixed in accordance with the facts found, but shall not be earlier than the date of receipt of application therefor.” The default rule applies “[u]nless specifically provided otherwise in this chapter”—a clause indicating that Congress enumerated an exhaustive list of exceptions, with each confined to its specific terms. According to the terms of the exception in §5110(b)(1), “[t]he effective date of an award of disability compensation to a veteran shall be the day following the date of the veteran’s discharge or release if application therefor is received within one year from such date of discharge or release.” Equitably tolling this provision would depart from the terms that Congress “specifically provided.” §5110(a)(1).
The structure of §5110—which sets out 16 exceptions that explain when various types of benefits qualify for an effective date earlier than the default—reinforces Congress’s choice to set effective dates solely as prescribed in the text. These exceptions do not operate simply as time constraints, but also as substantive limitations on the amount of recovery due, a structure strongly indicating that “Congress did not intend courts to read other unmentioned, open-ended, ‘equitable’ exceptions into the statute that it wrote.” Brockamp, 519 U. S., at 352. That many of the specific exceptions reflect equitable considerations heightens the structural inference, as does the fact that Congress generally capped retroactive benefits at roughly one year. When, as here, Congress has already considered equitable concerns and limited the relief available, “additional equitable tolling would be unwarranted.” United States v. Beggerly, 524 U. S. 38, 48–49. Although hard and fast limits on retroactive benefits can create harsh results, Congress has the power to choose between rules, which prioritize efficiency and predictability, and standards, which prioritize optimal results in individual cases. Cf. Brockamp, 519 U. S., at 352–353. Congress opted for rules in this statutory scheme, and an equitable extension of §5110(b)(1)’s 1-year grace period would disrupt that choice. Pp. 3–9.
(b) Arellano sees §5110(b)(1) as a simple time limit and therefore a classic case for equitable tolling. But §5110(b)(1) cannot be understood independently of §5110(a)(1), which makes the date of claim receipt the effective date “[u]nless specifically provided otherwise in this chapter.” This language is an instruction to attend to specifically enacted language to the exclusion of general, unenacted carveouts. Arellano relies on a separate exception in §5110(b)(4)—which makes disability pension benefits retroactive in certain cases where permanent and total disability prevents a veteran from applying for an award at the time of disability onset—to argue that Congress wanted traditional principles of equitable tolling to apply to §5110(b)(1). To the contrary, §5110(b)(4) demonstrates that Congress had on its radar the possibility that disability could delay an application for benefits and still Congress did not explicitly account for that possibility in §5110(b)(1). Young v. United States, 535 U. S. 43, distinguished. Finally, Arellano contends that the nature of the subject matter—veterans’ benefits—counsels in favor of tolling because providing benefits to veterans is a context in which individualized equities are paramount. But the nature of the subject matter cannot overcome statutory text and structure that foreclose equitable tolling. Pp. 9–11.
1 F. 4th 1059, affirmed.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse