Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-234_2b8e.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

12 

GEORGE v. MCDONOUGH 

Opinion of the Court 

“under the law that Congress looked to when codifying” it. 
Reply Brief 2, 4; see West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v. 
Casey,  499  U. S.  83,  92,  n. 5  (1991)  (terms  of  art  “depart 
from ordinary meaning”).  To the extent they diverge, the
historical meaning controls.

More modestly, George seeks to distinguish the statutory 
meaning from the prior practice on just one point.  Because 
Congress  did  not  expressly  enact  the  specific  regulatory
principle barring collateral relief for subsequent changes in 
interpretation,  he  insists  that  the  principle  did  not  carry
over  to  the  statute.  But  this  argument,  too,  misses  the 
mark.  The point of the old-soil principle is that “when Con-
gress  employs  a  term  of  art,”  that  usage  itself  suffices  to
“ ‘adop[t] the cluster of ideas that were attached to each bor-
rowed word’ ” in the absence of indication to the contrary. 
FAA v. Cooper, 566 U. S. 284, 292 (2012).  Here, the govern-
ing statute “is silent” on a host of matters ranging from the 
definition  of  clear  and  unmistakable  error  to  “the  specific
procedures  that  govern  a  [collateral]  claim.”  Disabled 
American Veterans, 234 F. 3d, at 694, 696 (citing 38 U. S. C. 
§7111).  And we take the statutory “silence” on the details
of prior regulatory practice to “l[eave] the matter where it
was  pre-[codification].”  Kucana  v.  Holder,  558  U. S.  233, 
250 (2010).  We decline George’s invitation to gerrymander 
out this one feature of the prior practice. 

* 

* 
The invalidation of a VA regulation after a veteran’s ben-
efits decision becomes final cannot support a claim for col-
lateral  relief  based  on  clear  and  unmistakable  error.    We 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 

* 

It is so ordered.