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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 301', '§ 211', '§ 3404', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 19', '§ 3402', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 3404', '§ 1252', '§ 3404', '§ 3404', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1291', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1291', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 2101', '§ 3', '§ 2282', '§ 2282', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 1252', '§ 7']

US Supreme Court Decisions - On-Line> Volume 473 > WALTERS V. RADIATION SURVIVORS, 473 U. S. 305 (1985)
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(a) Invalidation of the fee limitation would frustrate Congress' principal goal of wanting the veteran to get the entirety of the benefits award without having to divide it with an attorney. Invalidation would chanrobles.com-red
REHNQUIST, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J.,and WHITE, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 473 U. S. 336. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 473 U. S. 338. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 473 U. S. 358. chanrobles.com-red
Congress has by statute established an administrative system for granting service-connected death or disability benefits to veterans. See 38 U.S.C. § 301 et seq. The amount of the benefit award is not based upon need, but upon service connection -- that is, whether the disability is causally related to an injury sustained in the service -- and the degree of incapacity caused by the disability. A detailed system has been established by statute and Veterans' Administration (VA) regulation for determining a veteran's entitlement, with final authority resting with an administrative body known as the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA). Judicial review of VA decisions is precluded by statute. 38 U.S.C. § 211(a); Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361 (1974). The controversy in this case centers on the opportunity for a benefit applicant chanrobles.com-red
Appellees contended in the District Court that the fee limitation provision of § 3404 denied them any realistic opportunity to obtain legal representation in presenting their claims to the VA, and hence violated their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and under the First Amendment. The District Court agreed with the appellees on both of these grounds, and entered a nationwide "preliminary injunction" barring appellants from enforcing the fee limitation. 589 F.Supp. 1302 (1984). To understand fully the posture in which the case reaches us, it is necessary to discuss the administrative scheme in some detail. chanrobles.com-red
As might be expected in a system which processes such a large number of claims each year, the process prescribed by Congress for obtaining disability benefits does not contemplate the adversary mode of dispute resolution utilized by courts in this country. It is commenced by the submission of a claim form to the local veterans agency, which form is provided by the VA either upon request or upon receipt of notice of the death of a veteran. Upon application, a claim generally is first reviewed by a three-person "rating board" of the VA regional office -- consisting of a medical specialist, a legal specialist, and an "occupational specialist." A claimant is "entitled to a hearing at any time on any issue involved in a claim. . . ." 38 CFR § 3.103(c) (1984). Proceedings in front of the rating board "are ex parte in nature," § 3.103(a); no chanrobles.com-red
After reviewing the evidence, the board renders a decision either denying the claim or assigning a disability "rating" pursuant to detailed regulations developed for assessing various disabilities. Money benefits are calculated based on the rating. The claimant is notified of the board's decision and its reasons, and the claimant may then initiate an appeal by chanrobles.com-red
The process is designed to function throughout with a high degree of informality and solicitude for the claimant. There is no statute of limitations, and a denial of benefits has no formal res judicata effect; a claimant may resubmit as long as he presents new facts not previously forwarded. See 38 CFR §§ 3.104, 3.105 (1984). Although there are time limits for submitting a notice of disagreement, and although a claimant may prejudice his opportunity to challenge factual or legal decisions by failing to challenge them in that notice, the time limit is quite liberal -- up to one year -- and the VA boards are instructed to read any submission in the light most favorable to the claimant. See 38 CFR §§ 19.129, 19.124, 19.121 (1984). Perhaps more importantly for present purposes, however, various veterans' organizations across the country make available trained service agents, free of charge, to assist claimants in developing and presenting their claims. These service representatives are contemplated by the VA statute, 38 U.S.C. § 3402, and they are recognized as an important part of the administrative scheme. Appellees' counsel agreed at argument that a representative is available for chanrobles.com-red
The court then held that appellees had a strong likelihood of showing that the administrative scheme violated the due process rights of those entitled to benefits. In holding that the process described above was "fundamentally unfair," the court relied on the analysis developed by this Court in chanrobles.com-red
In reaching its conclusions, the court relied heavily on the problems presented by what it described as "complex cases" -- a class of cases also focused on in the depositions. Though never expressly defined by the District Court, these cases apparently include those in which a disability is slow developing, and therefore difficult to find service-connected, such as the claims associated with exposure to radiation or harmful chemicals, as well as other cases identified by the deponents as involving difficult matters of medical judgment. Nowhere in the opinion of the District Court is there any estimate of what percentage of the annual VA caseload of 800,000 these cases comprise, nor is there any more precise description of the class. There is no question but what the 3 named plaintiffs and the plaintiff veteran's widow asserted such claims, and in addition there are declarations in the record from 12 other claimants who were asserting such claims. The evidence contained in the record, however, suggests that the sum total of such claims is extremely small; in 1982, for example, roughly 20 of the BVA caseload consisted of "agent orange" or "radiation" claims, and what evidence chanrobles.com-red
589 F.Supp. at 1324. This right to "adequate legal representation" or "meaningful access to courts," the court found, was infringed by the fee limitation -- again chanrobles.com-red
We do not write on a clean slate. In McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U. S. 21 (1975), this Court similarly entertained an appeal from an order that granted a preliminary injunction, and in the process held an Act of Congress unconstitutional. In holding that we had jurisdiction under § 1252, we noted that that section constitutes an "exception" to "the chanrobles.com-red
Indeed, we note that the problem raised by the statute's use of the word "holding" may in any event be a bit of a red herring. In its original form, § 1252 provided this Court with appellate jurisdiction over decisions "against the constitutionality of any Act of Congress," see Act of Aug. 24, 1937, chanrobles.com-red
Finally, acceptance of appellate jurisdiction in this case is in accord with the purpose of the statutory grant. Last Term, in Heckler v. Edwards, 465 U. S. 870 (1984), we discussed § 1252's legislative history. We noted that, in enacting § 1252, Congress sought to identify a category of important decisions adverse to the constitutionality of an Act of Congress -- which decisions, because the United States or its agent was a party, had implications beyond the controversy then before the court -- and to provide an expeditious means for ensuring certainty and uniformity in the enforcement of such an Act by establishing direct review over such decisions in this Court. Id. at 465 U. S. 879-883. Edwards teaches that the decisions Congress targeted for appeal under § 1252 were those which involved the exercise of judicial power to impair the enforcement of an Act of Congress on constitutional grounds, and that it was the constitutional question that Congress wished this Court to decide. As we pointed out in McLucas, chanrobles.com-red
Judging the constitutionality of an Act of Congress is properly considered "the gravest and most delicate duty that this Court is called upon to perform,'" Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 453 U. S. 64 (1981) (quoting Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U. S. 142, 275 U. S. 148 (1927) (Holmes, J.)), and we begin our analysis here with no less deference than we customarily must pay to the duly enacted and carefully considered decision of a coequal and representative branch of our Government. Indeed, one might think, if anything, that more deference is called for here; the statute in question for all relevant purposes has been on the books for over 120 years. Cf. 17 U. S. 401-402 (1819). This deference to congressional judgment must be afforded even though the chanrobles.com-red
claim is that a statute Congress has enacted effects a denial of the procedural due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. Schweiker v. McClure, 456 U. S. 188 (1982); Mathews v. Eldridge,@ 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 349. We think that the District Court went seriously awry in assessing the constitutionality of § 3404.
Appellees' first claim, accepted by the District Court, is that the statutory fee limitation, as it bears on the administrative scheme in operation, deprives a rejected claimant or recipient of "life, liberty or property, without due process of law," U.S.Const., Amdt. 5, by depriving him of representation by expert legal counsel. [Footnote 8] Our decisions establish that "due process" is a flexible concept -- that the processes required by the Clause with respect to the termination of a protected interest will vary depending upon the importance attached to the interest and the particular circumstances under which the deprivation may occur. See Mathews, supra, at 424 U. S. 334; Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 408 U. S. 481 (1972). In defining the process necessary to ensure "fundamental fairness," we have recognized that the Clause does not require that "the procedures used to guard against an erroneous deprivation . . . be so comprehensive as to preclude any possibility of error," Mackey v. Montryn, 443 U. S. 1, 443 U. S. 13 (1979), and in addition we have emphasized that the marginal gains from affording an additional procedural safeguard often may be chanrobles.com-red
The Government interest, which has been articulated in congressional debates since the fee limitation was first enacted in 1862 during the Civil War, has been this: that the system for administering benefits should be managed in a sufficiently informal way that there should be no need for the employment of an attorney to obtain benefits to which a claimant was entitled, so that the claimant would receive the entirety of the award without having to divide it with a lawyer. See United States v. Hall, 98 U. S. 343, 98 U. S. 352-355 (1879). This purpose is reinforced by a similar absolute prohibition on compensation of any service organization representative. chanrobles.com-red
A necessary concomitant of Congress' desire that a veteran not need a representative to assist him in making his claim was that the system should be as informal and nonadversarial as possible. This is not to say that complicated factual inquiries may be rendered simple by the expedient of informality, but surely Congress desired that the proceedings be as chanrobles.com-red
We accordingly conclude that, under the Mathews v. Eldridge analysis, great weight must be accorded to the Government interest at stake here. The flexibility of our approach in due process cases is intended in part to allow room for other forms of dispute resolution; with respect to the individual interests at stake here, legislatures are to be allowed considerable leeway to formulate such processes without being forced to conform to a rigid constitutional code of procedural necessities. See Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. at 442 U. S. 608, n. 16. It would take an extraordinarily strong showing of probability of error under the present system -- and the probability that the presence of attorneys would sharply diminish that possibility -- to warrant a holding that the fee limitation denies claimants due process of law. We have no hesitation in deciding that no such showing was made out on the record before the District Court. chanrobles.com-red
The District Court also concluded, apparently independently of its ill-founded analysis of the claim statistics, (1) that the VA processes are procedurally, factually, and legally complex, and (2) that the VA system presently does not work as designed, particularly in terms of the representation afforded by VA personnel and service representatives, and that these representatives are "unable to perform all of the services which might be performed by a claimant's own chanrobles.com-red
The District Court's opinion is similarly short on definition or quantification of "complex" cases. If this term be understood to include all cases in which the claimant asserts injury from exposure to radiation or agent orange, only approximately 3 in 1,000 of the claims at the regional level and 2% of the appeals to the BVA involve such claims. Nor does it appear that all such claims would be complex by any fair definition of that term: at least 25% of all agent orange cases and 30% of the radiation cases, for example, are disposed of because the medical examination reveals no disability. What evidence does appear in the record indicates that the great chanrobles.com-red
The District Court's treatment of the likely usefulness of attorneys is on the same plane with its efforts to quantify the likelihood of error under the present system. The court states several times in its opinion that lawyers could provide more services than claimants presently receive -- a fact which may freely be conceded -- but does not suggest how the availability of these services would reduce the likelihood of error in the run-of-the-mine case. Simple factual questions are capable of resolution in a nonadversarial context, and it is less than crystal clear why lawyers must be available to identify possible errors in medical judgment. Cf. Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. at 442 U. S. 609-612. The availability of particular lawyers' services in so-called "complex" cases might be more of a factor in preventing error in such cases, but on this record we simply do not know how those cases should be defined or what percentage of all of the cases before the VA they make up. Even if the showing in the District Court had been much more favorable, appellees still would confront the constitutional hurdle posed by the principle enunciated in cases such as Mathews to the effect that a process must be judged by the generality of cases to which it applies, and therefore a process which is sufficient for the large majority of a group of claims is by constitutional definition sufficient for all of them. But here appellees have failed to make the very difficult factual showing necessary. [Footnote 12] chanrobles.com-red
Reliable evidence before the District Court showed that claimants represented by lawyers have a slightly better success rate before the BVA than do claimants represented by service representatives, and that both have a slightly better success rate than claimants who were not represented at all. Evidence also showed that there may be complex issues of causation in comparatively few of the hundreds of thousands of cases before the VA, but there is no adequate showing of the effect the availability of lawyers would have on the proper disposition of these cases. Neither the difference in success rate nor the existence of complexity in some cases is sufficient to warrant a conclusion that the right to retain and compensate an attorney in VA cases is a necessary element of procedural fairness under the Fifth Amendment. chanrobles.com-red
This case is further distinguishable from our prior decisions because the process here is not designed to operate adversarially. While counsel may well be needed to respond to opposing counsel or other forms of adversary in a trial-type proceeding, where as here no such adversary appears, and in addition a claimant or recipient is provided with substitute safeguards such as a competent representative, a decisionmaker whose duty it is to aid the claimant, and significant concessions with respect to the claimant's burden of proof, chanrobles.com-red
Finally, we must address appellees' suggestion that the fee limitation violates their First Amendment rights. Appellees claim that cases such as Mine Workers v. Illinois State Bar Assn., 389 U. S. 217 (1967), and Railroad Trainmen v. Virginia ex rel. Virginia State Bar, 377 U. S. 1 (1964), establish for individuals and organizations a right to ensure "meaningful access to courts" for themselves or their members, and that the District Court was correct in holding that this right was violated by the fee limitation. There are numerous conceptual difficulties with extending the cited cases to cover the situation here; for example, those cases involved the rights of unions and union members to retain or recommend counsel chanrobles.com-red
A preliminary injunction is only appropriate where there is a demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits. Doran chanrobles.com-red
Nevertheless, it is my understanding that the Court, in reversing the lower court's preliminary injunction, does not determine the merits of the appellees' individual "as applied" claims. The complaint indicates that appellees challenged the fee limitation both on its face and as applied to them, and sought a ruling that they were entitled to a rehearing of claims processed without assistance of an attorney. I App. 39-42. Appellee Albert Maxwell, for example, alleges that chanrobles.com-red
The Court today concludes that it has mandatory jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1252 directly to review the District Court's entry of a preliminary injunction restraining the Government from enforcing the provisions of 38 U.S.C. §§ 3404 and 3405 pending a full trial on the merits of appellees' contention that those statutes violate the First and chanrobles.com-red
The District Court did not hold that §§ 3404 and 3405 are unconstitutional either on their face or as applied. Instead, for purposes of considering the appellees' motion for a pretrial preliminary injunction pursuant to Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it found that appellees had chanrobles.com-red
"demonstrated a high likelihood of prevailing" on the merits of their due process and First Amendment challenges. 589 F.Supp. 1302, 1323 (ND Cal.1984); see also id. at 1307, 1327, 1329. The court then weighed the potential for irreparable injury and the balance of hardships in light of this likelihood of success. It found that the appellees had "shown the irreparable injury necessary to obtain injunctive relief" and concluded that "the balance of hardship also weighs heavily in [their] favor." Id. at 1329. [Footnote 2/2] Accordingly, the court entered a broad preliminary injunction restraining enforcement of the challenged statutes "pending a trial on the merits of the above-entitled action." Ibid. As this Court was advised at oral argument, the appellees contemplate further extensive chanrobles.com-red
Contrary to the Court's assertion, there is much more than a "semantic difference" between a finding of likelihood of success sufficient to support preliminary relief and a final holding on the merits. Ante at 473 U. S. 317. Until today, the Court always has recognized that district court findings on "likelihood of success on the merits" are not "tantamount to decisions on the underlying merits"; the two are "significantly different." University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 451 U. S. 393-394 (1981). Preliminary injunctions are granted on the basis of a broad "balance of factors" determined through "procedures that are less formal and evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits," and the parties are accorded neither "a full opportunity to present their cases nor . . . a final judicial decision based on the actual merits of a controversy." Id. at 451 U. S. 395-396 (emphasis added). District court orders granting preliminary injunctions may therefore be reviewed only on an abuse-of-discretion standard: an appellate court may conclude that the district court's preliminary relief sweeps too broadly, or is based on an improper balancing of hardships, or even that the likelihood of success has been overdrawn. See generally Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 422 U. S. 931-932 (1975); Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 411 U. S. 457 (1973). But under the abuse of discretion standard, appellate courts obviously may "intimate no view as to the ultimate merits" of the underlying controversy. Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., supra, at 422 U. S. 934; Brown v. Chote, supra, at 411 U. S. 457. [Footnote 2/4] For several reasons, this is particularly true chanrobles.com-red
Section 1252 does not empower this Court directly to police the preliminary injunctive process in the district courts. Instead, it was enacted to ensure the "prompt determination by the court of last resort of disputed questions of the constitutionality of acts of the Congress." [Footnote 2/6] Whether one relies on chanrobles.com-red
the codified language -- permitting a direct appeal from a lower court decision "holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional" [Footnote 2/7] -- or on the original language of the statute -- permitting a direct appeal where "the decision is against the constitutionality of any Act of Congress" [Footnote 2/8] -- it is obvious that chanrobles.com-red
The Court argues, however, that, because § 1252 explicitly grants jurisdiction to this Court "from an interlocutory or final judgment" of unconstitutionality, Congress surely intended to include preliminary injunctions granted on "likelihood of success" within the scope of § 1252. Ante at 473 U. S. 316-317, 473 U. S. 318-319. The Court reinforces this argument by noting chanrobles.com-red
Where the disputed decision "remains open, unfinished or inconclusive," on the other hand, it is well established that, under §§ 1291 and 1292(a), "there may be no intrusion by appeal" of the unresolved issue. [Footnote 2/16] The reasons are manifest. If the appellate court addressed the issue in such an inconclusive chanrobles.com-red
On the other hand, we have never in the 48-year history of § 1252 assumed jurisdiction where the district court had done no more than simply determine that there was a "likelihood" of unconstitutionality sufficient to support temporary relief pending a final decision on the merits. Because such determinations chanrobles.com-red
are inherently "open, unfinished [and] inconclusive," [Footnote 2/19] the only proper questions for immediate appellate consideration would be whether the entry and scope of preliminary relief were abuses of discretion. But such review is not the purpose of § 1252 because, as the Court today concedes, "it was the constitutional question that Congress wished this Court to decide." Ante at 473 U. S. 318 (emphasis added). [Footnote 2/20] If the Court did address the constitutional issue in these circumstances, it either would be rendering an advisory opinion subject to revision once the district court reached the merits or, to the extent it purported to pass on the issue with finality, would be exercising a forbidden "power . . . of intervention" rather than of review. [Footnote 2/21] We have long recognized that such intervention is barred under §§ 1291 and 1292(a), and should have so recognized here as well. [Footnote 2/22] chanrobles.com-red
Moreover, the Court's reasoning sweeps both too narrowly and too broadly. It sweeps too narrowly because mandatory jurisdiction pursuant to § 1252 is not confined to district court decisions striking down statutes "across the country and under all circumstances." Ante at 473 U. S. 319. See also ante at 473 U. S. 336 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). We have instead long recognized that § 1252 requires that we review decisions that simply invalidate challenged statutes even as applied only to particular individuals in particular circumstances. [Footnote 2/24] Allowing chanrobles.com-red
an immediate appeal in these circumstances is thought to further the "great public interest" in securing "prompt determinations" of the validity of lower court precedent that might have binding effect in cases beyond the one at hand. [Footnote 2/25] Where a district court simply has granted a preliminary injunction -- or for that matter a temporary restraining order [Footnote 2/26] -- barring enforcement of a statute as applied to certain individuals, the precedential effect is far more obscure. Such orders are based on a case-specific balancing of the equities that may well not carry over into other situations. It is simply too burdensome for this Court to bear mandatory direct jurisdiction over every preliminary injunction, temporary restraining order, and other pretrial order in cases potentially implicating the constitutionality of federal statutes. The Court might respond that § 1252 appeals in this context can be limited to preliminary relief having nationwide impact, but this would be bootstrap reasoning without support in our precedents: the propriety of an appeal under § 1252 turns not on the scope of the potential impact, but on the underlying nature of the district court's determination. [Footnote 2/27] chanrobles.com-red
this Court's Rule 18, certiorari review can be obtained before the court of appeals renders judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 2101(e). This Court has not hesitated to exercise this power of swift intervention in cases of extraordinary constitutional moment and chanrobles.com-red
in cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act could be granted unless presented to and resolved by a three-judge district court. That section also contained its own built-in jurisdictional authorization for direct Supreme Court review of any "order, decree, or judgment" issued by chanrobles.com-red
such a court granting or denying "an interlocutory or permanent injunction in such case." Moreover, § 3 provided that a single district judge could enter a "temporary stay or suspension, in whole or in part," of the enforcement of the challenged statute "until decision upon the application," provided that the applicant made a sufficient showing of, inter alia, "irreparable loss or damage." [Footnote 2/32] chanrobles.com-red
Second, when Congress repealed § 2282 in 1976, [Footnote 2/34] it specifically considered the question of the best means for policing the injunctive process in constitutional challenges pending decision on the underlying merits. Whereas review of three-judge interlocutory orders in such cases formerly had been routed directly to this Court, see §§ 2282, 2283 (1970 ed.), Congress believed that interlocutory review in the courts of chanrobles.com-red
Although deciding that a direct appeal of this preliminary injunction is proper, the six Members of today's majority appear to be sharply divided over the nature of the issues before us and the proper scope of our authority on review. JUSTICE O'CONNOR, joined by JUSTICE BLACKMUN, eschews any attempt to resolve the underlying merits of the constitutional challenge. She properly recognizes that, because chanrobles.com-red
The opinion for the Court appears to take a very different tack. To be sure, the Court notes two or three times that the District Court simply found a "likelihood" that the appellees chanrobles.com-red
Having thus paved the way for its consideration of the constitutional merits, the Court then proceeds to "review" the District Court's "holding" in light of the record evidence and the three-part Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976), balancing test. The Court focuses on the Mathews factors of the risk of an erroneous decision through the current procedures, and the probable value of additional safeguards. The Court rummages through the partially developed record and seizes upon scattered evidence introduced by the Government on the eve of the preliminary injunction hearing -- evidence that never has been tested in a trial on the merits -- and pronounces that evidence "reliable" and compelling. See, chanrobles.com-red
This brand of constitutional adjudication is extraordinary. Whereas JUSTICE O'CONNOR faithfully adheres to the limited role of appellate judges in reviewing preliminary injunctions, and thereby departs from the purposes of § 1252, the opinion for the Court seizes upon the underlying purposes of § 1252 in order to evade the well-established rule prohibiting appellate courts from even purporting to "intimate . . . view[s]" on the ultimate merits when reviewing preliminary injunctions granted on likelihood of success. Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 934. If the opinion for the Court turns out to be more than an unfortunate aberration, it will threaten a fundamental transformation of the equitable process of granting preliminary relief in cases challenging the constitutionality of Government action. [Footnote 2/42] Individual litigants seeking such chanrobles.com-red
The Court argues that the finality issue is a "bit of a red herring," given that the original version of § 1252, see 473 U. S. 318. I disagree. Every district court order in litigation such as this that denies a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment, grants a temporary restraining order, see 473 U. S. 546.
See legislative history discussed in 473 U. S. 6, supra.
The Court does not appreciate the value of individual liberty. It may well be true that, in the vast majority of cases, a veteran does not need to employ a lawyer, ante at 473 U. S. 329-330, and that the system of processing veterans benefit claims, by chanrobles.com-red
The first fee limitation -- $5 per claim -- was enacted in 1862. [Footnote 3/1] That limitation was repealed two years later and chanrobles.com-red
At the time the $10 fee limitation was enacted, Congress presumably considered that fee reasonable. The legal work chanrobles.com-red
The fact that the statute was aimed at unscrupulous attorneys is confirmed by the provision for criminal penalties. Instead of just making an agreement to pay a greater fee unenforceable -- as an anticipatory pledge of an interest in future pension benefits is unenforceable -- the Act contains a flat prohibition against the direct or indirect collection of a greater fee, and provides that an attorney who charges more than $10 may be imprisoned for up to two years at hard labor. [Footnote 3/6] Thus, an unscrupulous moneylender or merchant chanrobles.com-red
In my opinion, the bureaucratic interest in minimizing the cost of administration is nothing but a red herring. [Footnote 3/8] Congress has not prohibited lawyers from participating in the processing of claims for benefits, and there is no reason why it chanrobles.com-red
The fact that a lawyer's services are unnecessary in most cases, and might even be counterproductive in a few, does not justify a total prohibition on their participation in all pension claim proceedings. This fact is perhaps best illustrated by Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778 (1973), a case in which we held that the State does not have a constitutional obligation chanrobles.com-red
to provide a parolee or probationer with counsel in every revocation proceeding. The informality of the proceeding makes counsel unnecessary in most cases, but we squarely held that, in some cases, a lawyer's presence was constitutionally required. [Footnote 3/11] Although, surprisingly, the Court relies on Gagnon today, see ante at 473 U. S. 324-325, not a word in that opinion implies that a parolee or probationer could be denied the right to have retained counsel represent him. The case-by-case approach to the participation of counsel endorsed in Gagnon [Footnote 3/12] is the approach that should apply to veterans claim proceedings. Lawyers may not be needed in most cases, but should be permitted in appropriate cases. [Footnote 3/13] The interest in efficient administration plainly does not justify a total prohibition on representation by counsel. Nor can it justify a rule that indirectly accomplishes that result by discouraging their participation in all cases. chanrobles.com-red
It is evident from what I have written that I regard the fee limitation as unwise and an insult to the legal profession. It does not follow, however, that it is unconstitutional. The Court correctly notes that the presumption of constitutionality that attaches to every Act of Congress requires the challenger to bear the burden of demonstrating its invalidity. chanrobles.com-red
It is true that the statute that was incorrectly invalidated in Lochner provided protection for a group of workers, but that protection was a response to the assumed disparity in the bargaining power of employers and employees, and was justified by the interest in protecting the health and welfare of the protected group. It is rather misleading to imply that a rejection of the Lochner holding is an endorsement of rational paternalism as a legitimate legislative goal. See ante at 473 U. S. 323. But in any event, the kind of paternalism reflected in this statute as it operates today is irrational. It purports to protect the veteran who has little or no need for protection, and it actually denies him assistance in cases in which the help of his own lawyer may be of critical importance. [Footnote 3/14] chanrobles.com-red
The fundamental error in the Court's analysis is its assumption that the individual's right to employ counsel of his choice in a contest with his sovereign is a kind of second-class chanrobles.com-red
interest that can be assigned a material value and balanced on a utilitarian scale of costs and benefits. [Footnote 3/18] It is true that the veteran's right to benefits is a property right, and that, in fashioning the procedures for administering the benefit program, the Government may appropriately weigh the value of additional procedural safeguards against their pecuniary costs. It may, for example, properly decide not to provide free counsel to claimants. But we are not considering a procedural right that would involve any cost to the Government. [Footnote 3/19] chanrobles.com-red
In all criminal proceedings, that right is expressly protected by the Sixth Amendment. As I have indicated, in civil disputes with the Government, I believe that right is also protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and by the First Amendment. If the Government, in the guise of a paternalistic interest in protecting the citizen from his own improvidence, can deny him access to independent counsel of his choice, it can change the character of our free society. [Footnote 3/21] Even though a dispute with the sovereign may only involve property rights, or as in this case a statutory chanrobles.com-red
In my view, regardless of the nature of the dispute between the sovereign and the citizen -- whether it be a criminal trial, a proceeding to terminate parental rights, a claim for social security benefits, a dispute over welfare benefits, or a pension claim asserted by the widow of a soldier who was killed on the battlefield -- the citizen's right to consult an independent lawyer and to retain that lawyer to speak on his or her behalf is an aspect of liberty that is priceless. It chanrobles.com-red
13 Stat. 389. Section 13 of the 1864 Act reenacted the criminal penalties contained in § 7 of the 1862 Act. Ibid. See 473 U. S. 1, supra.
589 F.Supp. 1302, 1323 (ND Cal.1984). See also 473 U. S. 8, supra.