Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-234_2b8e.pdf
Page Number: 23

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

5 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

eral Circuit in Wagner later held that the agency’s regula-
tions “clear[ly]” defied its statutory charge from Congress.
370 F. 3d, at 1094.  But, on the Court’s view today, that de-
cision represented a change in governing law.  See ante, at 
7, 9. 

A clear and unmistakable agency error cannot be made 
to  vanish  so  easily.  Even  if  an  agency’s  unlawful  regula-
tions may bind its own employees until a court says other-
wise, that does not mean its decisions applying those regu-
lations to others are error-free.  The regulations on which 
the VA relied in this case always defied Congress’s express 
command  in  § 1111.    In  that  sense,  they  were  always  a 
“ ‘nullity.’ ”  Dixon, 381 U. S., at 74.  Nor does it make a dif-
ference  that  Wagner  recognized  as  much  only  some  time 
later.  Once  more,  when  a  court  interprets  a  statute  and
declares contrary regulations invalid, it cannot and does not 
change the law; it can only explain what the law has “al-
ways meant.”  Rivers, 511 U. S., at 313, n. 12.  The Court 
today  errs  badly  by  excusing  an  obvious  error  simply  be-
cause it was once enshrined by the agency in a statutorily 
defiant regulation.

What  is  more,  the  Court’s  reading  is  at  odds  with  the 
plain  terms  of  §§ 5109A  and  7111.    Under  those  statutes, 
an  initial  administrative  ruling  denying  benefits  “is  sub-
ject” to later “revision . . . [i]f evidence establishes the [clear
and unmistakable] error.”  §§ 5109A(a), 7111(a) (emphasis 
added).  Notice  the  tense.    The  law  does  not  ask  if  the 
agency’s error was “clear and unmistakable” at the time of 
its  original  decision.  Instead,  it  commands  the  agency  to
correct any clear and unmistakable error presently estab-
lished.  The same statutes further instruct that a petition 
“to determine whether clear and unmistakable error exists 
in a case may be instituted” in various ways.  §§ 5109A(c), 
7111(c) (emphasis added).  More present tense.  Congress
easily  could  have  said  that  a  decision  is  reviewable  only