Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-234_2b8e.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, 559 U. S. 260, 270 (2010) (an “ex-
ception to finality” should not be read to “swallow the rule”). 
So  the  VA’s  approach  to  collateral  relief  is  not  unusual. 
Here  as  elsewhere,  litigants  must  overcome  a  “stron[g]”
“presumption  of  validity”  when  “otherwise  final  decisions 
. . . are collaterally attacked.”  Fugo v. Brown, 6 Vet. App.
40, 44 (1993).2 

2 
George  also  leans  on  what  he  describes  as  “the  plain
meaning of th[e] words” clear and unmistakable error.  Re-
ply Brief 2.  As he puts it: “Looking at the 1977 Board’s de-
cision today, the legal error is clear.  It is unmistakable.” 
Id., at 1.  (This is the thrust of JUSTICE GORSUCH’s position 
too.  See post, at 3–5 (dissenting opinion).)  We share the 
Government’s doubt about how natural it is to say that the
Board “commit[ted] ‘clear and unmistakable error’ by faith-
fully applying a VA regulation that was found to be invalid 
more than 25 years later.”  Brief for Respondent 33.  More 
fundamentally, though, this argument is inconsistent with 
George’s well-taken concessions elsewhere that “the [clear-
and-unmistakable-error]  statutes  track  preexisting  Veter-
ans  Court  case  law”  and  other  agency  practice  defining  a
“deeply  rooted”  regulatory  standard.    Reply  Brief  8;  Brief 
for  Petitioner  6.    The  real  question  is  not  what  might  be 
called  clear  and  unmistakable  error  in  the  abstract,  but 
what was the “prevailing understanding” of this term of art 

—————— 

2 The  principal  dissent  claims  that  this  conclusion  conflicts  with  the 
governing statute’s present-tense statement that a VA decision “ ‘is sub-
ject’  to  later  ‘revision’ ”  on  collateral  review.  Post,  at  5  (opinion  of
GORSUCH, J.).  But it would make little sense for Congress to pass a stat-
ute stating that a decision “was” subject to revision.  The statute’s use of 
the  present  tense  refers  to  the  time  at  which  relief  may  be  sought.    It 
says nothing about the scope of the category of clear and unmistakable 
errors  meriting  relief,  as  fixed  by  the  regulatory  history.    So  we  think 
there are good reasons why neither George nor any of his amici makes 
this argument.