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2 

GEORGE v. MCDONOUGH 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

regulatory doctrine based on its use of “clear and unmistak-
able error,” a longstanding term of art.  See ante, at 5, 12.2 
I diverge from JUSTICE GORSUCH on this point.  The ques-
tion remains, however: What constitutes a “change in inter-
pretation of law” excluded from clear and unmistakable er-
ror?  In  George’s  view,  a  change  in  interpretation  of  law 
occurs where “an agency . . . choos[es] another permissible
alternative  construction”  of  a  statute,  but  not  where,  as 
here, a court invalidates a regulation that had egregiously 
violated the governing statute all along.  Brief for Petitioner 
18; see also post, at 4–5 (GORSUCH, J., dissenting).

The Court disagrees.  It holds that under the pre-existing 
doctrine,  judicial  invalidation  of  an  unmistakably  errone-
ous  regulation  was  understood  to  constitute  a  “change  in
interpretation of law” for purposes of clear and unmistaka-
ble error.  See ante, at 5–9.  The Court’s citations offer little 
support for this conclusion, however.  In Berger v. Brown, 
10 Vet. App. 166, 170 (1997), for example, the Court of Vet-
erans Appeals (Veterans Court) stated that opinions from
that body “that formulate new interpretations of the law . . . 
cannot be the basis of a valid [clear-and-unmistakable-er-
ror] claim.”  But the Veterans Court emphasized that the 
decision  under  attack,  unlike  the  Board’s  decision  in 
George’s  case,  had  followed  “a  plausible  interpretation  of 
the law,” precluded by “nothing in the plain language of the
statute,” and added that “[t]he statute was, and still is for
that matter, susceptible of differing interpretations.”  Ibid.  
Similarly, in Damrel v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 242, 246 (1994),
the relevant change in interpretation of law was a Veterans 

—————— 

2 Were there any doubt, legislative history would render the conclusion 
unavoidable.    See  H. R.  Rep.  No.  105–52,  pp. 1–2  (1997)  (“H. R.  1090 
would . . . codify existing regulations which make [VA] decisions . . . sub-
ject to revision on the grounds of clear and unmistakable error”); S. Rep. 
No. 105–57, p. 4 (1997) (“The Committee bill . . . would codify, in statute,
the allowance currently specified by regulation” for review based on clear
and unmistakable error).