Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-234_2b8e.pdf
Page Number: 8

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

II 
A 
This case turns on the meaning of the 1997 statute sub-
jecting  a  final  veterans’  benefits  decision  to  collateral  re-
view  on  grounds  of  “clear  and  unmistakable  error.”    111 
Stat. 2271 (38 U. S. C. §§5109A, 7111).  Neither this statute 
nor  any  other  defines  this  term—indeed,  it  appears  no-
where else in the entire United States Code.  The modifiers 
“clear”  and  “unmistakable”  indicate  that  this  is  a  narrow 
category excluding some forms of error cognizable in other 
contexts.  The statutory structure similarly suggests a nar-
row category because this form of review functions as a lim-
ited exception to finality, in contrast to the broad provision
of one direct appeal for “[a]ll questions” in a case.  §7104(a).
But beyond those general contours, the statute itself does
not identify the specific ways in which this category is nar-
rower than garden-variety “error.” 

Fortunately, a robust regulatory backdrop fills in the de-
tails.  Where Congress employs a term of art “ ‘ “obviously
transplanted from another legal source,” ’ it ‘ “brings the old 
soil  with  it.” ’ ”  Taggart  v.  Lorenzen,  587  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2019) (slip op., at 5).  That principle applies here.  In 1997, 
Congress used an unusual term that had a long regulatory 
history in this very context.  It enacted no new “definition” 
or other provision indicating any departure from the “same 
meaning” that the VA had long applied.  Hall v. Hall, 584 
U. S.  ___,  ___  (2018)  (slip  op.,  at  13).    We  therefore  agree
with  the  Federal  Circuit  that  Congress  “codif[ied]  and
adopt[ed] the [clear-and-unmistakable-error] doctrine as it
had developed under” prior agency practice.  Cook v. Prin-
cipi, 318 F. 3d 1334, 1344 (2002) (en banc).  That longstand-
ing VA practice reveals several respects in which the clear-
and-unmistakable category is a “very specific and rare kind
of  error”  narrower  than  error  simpliciter. 
38  CFR 
§20.1403(a). 

Most important for present purposes, the history reveals