Source: https://vaclaim.wordpress.com/category/va-education-benefits/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 08:41:02+00:00

Document:
A veteran cannot receive VA compensation for a disability that is the result of willful misconduct. 38 U.S.C. § 1110; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.1(m), (n), 3.301(a)-(b), (c)(2), (d). Willful misconduct is broadly defined as “an act involving conscious wrongdoing or known prohibited action [;] … [i]t involves deliberate or intentional wrongdoing with knowledge of or wanton and reckless disregard of its probable consequences.” 38 C.F.R. § 3.1(n); see Yeoman v. West, 140 F.3d 1443, 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (holding that VA’s willful misconduct regulations were not unconstitutionally void for vagueness); Daniels v. Brown, 9 Vet. App. 348, 351 (1996) (willful misconduct negates statutory presumption that disease or injury was incurred in line of duty (citing 38 U.S.C. § 105(a))); VA Gen. Coun. Prec. 2-93 (January 13, 1993) (discussing origins and subsequent history of willful misconduct prohibition in context of tobacco use) [hereinafter 1993 VAGC Opinion ].
However, a “[m]ere technical violation of police regulations or ordinances will not per se constitute willful misconduct,” and the latter “will not be determinative unless it is the proximate cause of injury, disease or death.” 38 C.F.R. § 3.1(n)(2)-(3). Moreover, alcohol abuse, a specific type of willful misconduct, is defined as “the use of alcoholic beverages over time, or such excessive use at any one time, sufficient to cause disability to or death of the user.” 38 C.F.R. § 3.301(d); see Allen v. Principi, 237 F.3d 1368, 1376-78 (Fed. Cir. 2001); see also 38 C.F.R. § 3.301(c)(2) (“The simple drinking of alcoholic beverage is not of itself willful misconduct [; however] … [i]f, in the drinking of a beverage to enjoy its intoxicating effects, intoxication results proximately and immediately in disability or death, the disability or death will be considered the result of the person’s willful misconduct.”). The Board may consider state law in interpreting VA’s definition of willful misconduct. Yeoman, 140 F.3d at 1446 (holding that “[t]he Board’s consideration of … state law was a proper part of its interpretation of willful misconduct under the standards mandated by the very regulations defining that term and its relation to drunkenness.”). The Board’s determination that a disability is the result of willful misconduct is a finding of fact. Thomas v. Nicholson, 423 F.3d 1279, 1283 (Fed. Cir. 2005).

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