Opinion ID: 208758
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Text and Framework

Text: In statutory interpretation, we begin with the text. Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U.S. 438, 450, 122 S.Ct. 941, 151 L.Ed.2d 908 (2002); Bazalo v. West, 150 F.3d 1380, 1382 (Fed.Cir.1998). If the statute is unambiguous, we need not inquire further. Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U.S. 432, 438, 119 S.Ct. 755, 142 L.Ed.2d 881 (1999); Cox v. West, 149 F.3d 1360, 1363 (Fed.Cir.1998). In this case, the statutory section at issue reads as follows: (a) Claimant Responsibility.Except as otherwise provided by law, a claimant has the responsibility to present and support a claim for benefits under laws administered by the Secretary. 38 U.S.C. § 5107(a) (2006). Prior to the VCAA, section 5107(a) read as follows: Except when otherwise provided by the Secretary in accordance with the provisions of this title, a person who submits a claim for benefits under a law administered by the Secretary shall have the burden of submitting evidence sufficient to justify a belief by a fair and impartial individual that the claim is well grounded. The Secretary shall assist such a claimant in developing the facts pertinent to the claim. Such assistance shall include requesting information as described in section 5106 of this title. 38 U.S.C. § 5107(a) (1994) (emphasis added). Skoczen contends that the elimination of any reference to burden relieved the claimant of any burden of proof. The question we must address then is what obligation the phrase to present and support, in particular to support, places on the claimant. The statute contains no explicit definition of support. Nevertheless, the commonly understood meaning of support strongly suggests that, for a veteran to support his or her claim for benefits, the veteran must, at some point, provide an evidentiary basis for the claim. Numerous dictionaries define support as requiring some type of substantiation or corroboration. See The New Oxford American Dictionary 1708 (2001) ([to] suggest the truth of; corroborate); The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1739 (4th ed.2000) ([t]o furnish corroborating evidence for: New facts supported her story); Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 1912-13 (2d ed.1998) (to corroborate (a statement, opinion, etc.): Leading doctors supported his testimony); Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1186 (1990) (to provide with substantiation: corroborate); Webster's New International Dictionary Unabridged 2534 (2d ed.1939) ([t]o verify; substantiate; as evidence supporting a charge). In the more general context, when we ask a party to support a legal claim, we generally expect the party to provide some factual basis that would allow us to conclude the claim is valid. Thus, a plaintiff must plead factual allegations that support a facially `plausible' claim to relief in order to avoid dismissal for failure to state a claim. Cambridge v. United States, 558 F.3d 1331, 1335 (Fed.Cir.2009) (emphasis added) ( citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)); see also Int'l Tech. Corp. v. Winter, 523 F.3d 1341, 1348 (Fed. Cir.2008) (A misstatement as to site conditions in a government contract can support a claim for breach of contract. ( citing Hollerbach v. United States, 233 U.S. 165, 172, 49 Ct.Cl. 686, 34 S.Ct. 553, 58 L.Ed. 898 (1914))); Sys. Tech. Assocs., Inc. v. United States, 699 F.2d 1383, 1387-88 (Fed.Cir.1983) (An act the [g]overnment is empowered to take under law, regulation, or contract may nonetheless support a claim of duress if the act violates notions of fair dealing by virtue of its coercive effect.). This plain meaning of support alone appears enough to confirm our opinion that the support requirement of section 5107(a) obligates the claimant to provide some evidentiary basis for his or her benefits claim. At times during this appeal, Skoczen argues that section 5107(a) relieve[s] claimants of any burden to prove entitlement to the claimed benefit. Pet. Br. 10. In other words, according to Skoczen, a claimant need only present a facially valid claim (though the claimant may do more if the claimant wishes). Id. at 11. Other times, Skoczen appears to adopt a more moderate stance with respect to the claimant's responsibilities during the claims process. For instance, he recognizes that there are times when a claimant will need to support a claim by the submission of evidence unavailable to the VA. Reply Br. 4. The government seems to argue that claimants seeking VA benefits ultimately bear the burden of establishing that they are entitled to such benefits. Resp't Br. 9. The government states that there can be no doubt that the claimant bears the burden to prove his claim. Id. With that summary, we can see the point of disagreement over the meaning of section 5107(a). Part of the difficulty with the briefing in this case is the inflexible application of traditional legal terminology to a unique administrative procedure that doesn't easily succumb to concepts from adversary litigation such as burden of proof. See H.R.Rep. No. 100-963, at 13 (1988), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1988, pp. 5782, 5794 (In such a beneficial structure [as the veterans' claims process,] there is no room for such adversarial concepts as cross examination, best evidence rule, hearsay evidence exclusion, or strict adherence to burden of proof.). Both parties nevertheless talk in traditional terms of burdens of proof. Skoczen frames the issue as whether section 5107(a) imposes a burden of proof on a clamant [sic] for VA benefits. Pet. Br. 1. The government likewise relies on rigid legal terms, arguing that Veterans Court precedent clearly affirms that claimants bear the burden of proof. Resp't Br. 18. This may occur, in part, because even skilled legal professionals routinely invoke the term burden of proof with insufficient precision. Judge Ambro, writing for a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, explained well the dichotomous meaning of burden of proof: Many of the cases we cite use the terms burden of proof and burden of persuasion interchangeably. Yet the two concepts are not identical. The burden of proof comprises the burdens of production and persuasion. The former is the obligation to come forward with evidence of a litigant's necessary propositions of fact. It often matters most before trial because plaintiffs who have not come forward with hard evidence to support their necessary allegations cannot survive a summary judgment motion by the defense. The burden of persuasion, on the other hand, is the obligation to convince the factfinder at trial that a litigant's necessary propositions of fact are indeed true. El v. Se. Pa. Transp. Auth. (SEPTA), 479 F.3d 232, 237 n. 6 (3d Cir.2007) (citation omitted); see also 21 B Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice & Procedure § 5122 (3d ed.2005); cf. Dir., Office of Workers' Comp. Programs v. Greenwich Collieries, 512 U.S. 267, 275-76, 114 S.Ct. 2251, 129 L.Ed.2d 221 (1994) (defining burden of proof as meaning burden of persuasion in the context of the Administrative Procedure Act). And this very confusion has appeared in this case. Skoczen contends that the statute's language does not impose upon a claimant a burden of proof. Reply Br. 1. But that assertion by itself is unclear on its face, as it could mean that Skoczen contends that the statute does not impose a burden of persuasion upon the claimant, or alternatively that the statute does not impose a burden of production on the claimant. To the extent Skoczen argues that section 5107(a) relieves a claimant of any obligation to prove that his or her claim should be awarded, this argument fails. Section 5107(a) is silent as to the quantum of evidence necessary to grant a veteran's benefit claim. Section 5107(b), however, instead squarely addresses this issue, and we have previously interpreted subsection (b). See Ortiz v. Principi, 274 F.3d 1361, 1365 (Fed.Cir.2001); see also Gilbert v. Derwinski, 1 Vet.App. 49, 54-55 (1990). Under subsection (b), the claimant enjoys what is termed the benefit of the doubt rule, or alternatively what may be thought of as an equality of the evidence standard (as opposed to the more common preponderance of the evidence standard applied in most civil contexts). That is, we can think of this standard as a burden of persuasion, in that the evidence must rise to a state of equipoise for the claimant to win. But, at the same time, it may be misleading to call it a traditional burden, which usually rests entirely on a single party in a proceeding. In the veterans' claims adjudication process, the responsibility for developing evidence may, at certain times during the process, reside on both the claimant and VA. Turning to the so-called burden of production, Skoczen asserts that [t]he burden of submitting evidence was eliminated by Congress. Pet. Br. 11. We disagree with the broad, unqualified nature of this statement. True, a claimant generally does not shoulder all the responsibility of providing evidentiary support for his or her benefits claim. Much responsibility generally falls on VA, to the extent Congress has codified that responsibility in section 5103A, which sets forth VA's duty to assist the claimant. [1] Under that statute, VA must make reasonable efforts to assist a claimant in obtaining evidence necessary to substantiate the claimant's claim for a benefit. 38 U.S.C. § 5103A(a)(1); see also Moore v. Shinseki, 555 F.3d 1369, 1372 (Fed.Cir.2009); Disabled Am. Veterans v. Sec'y of Veterans Affairs, 419 F.3d 1317, 1318-19 (Fed.Cir.2005) (noting that VA is generally required to make reasonable efforts to provide medical examinations). Thus, unlike many administrative proceedings before federal agencies, in veterans proceedings, VA has an affirmative duty to obtain the evidence it reasonably can that is necessary to substantiate the claim. Often, that extends only to government records, such as military, labor, and social security records, and VA's efforts to obtain those records shall continue until the records are obtained unless it is reasonably certain that such records do not exist or that further efforts to obtain those records would be futile. 38 U.S.C. § 5103A(b)(3). The claimant, however, will at times have some responsibility to submit evidence corroborating his eligibility for a claimed benefit. Section 5103(a) requires VA to notify the veteran of any information, and any medical or lay evidence, not previously provided to the Secretary that is necessary to substantiate the claim. With the notice, VA shall indicate which portion of that information and evidence, if any, is to be provided by the claimant and which portion, if any, the Secretary, in accordance with section 5103A of this title and any other applicable provisions of law, will attempt to obtain on behalf of the claimant. Section 5103(b) specifies that such information or evidence must be received by the Secretary within one year from the date such notice is sent. The notification and response scheme created by section 5103 contemplates situations in which the claimant will be responsible for producing the evidence to prove eligibility for the benefit. An example would be records of a veteran's private physician. Section 5103 appears irreconcilable with Skoczen's position, as a claimant would have no obligation to respond to any VA notification pursuant to section 5103(a) or (b) if a true burden of persuasion and burden of production resided fully and solely with VA. Additionally, 38 U.S.C. § 5124 authorizes VA to accept the claimant's statementas opposed to some independent documentationas proof of the existence of any relationship relating to the claim, such as marriage, dissolution of a marriage, birth of a child, and death of any family member. In this instance, the statute plainly requires the claimant to submit proof of the relationship issue, albeit the proof required is merely the claimant's statement. Again contemplating a claimant's ability to submit evidence, section 5125 instructs that, when a claimant submits a private physician's report in support of a claim for benefits, VA may accept that report without a requirement for confirmation by an examination by a physician employed by the Veterans Health Administration if the report is sufficiently complete to be adequate for the purpose of adjudicating such claim. In the end, Skoczen's proposed statutory construction creates tension with numerous sections in Title 38 that control the evidentiary requirements and process for veterans' claims. Certain presumptions mandated by Title 38 further erode the foundation of Skoczen's position. A veteran is generally presumed to be in sound condition when examined, accepted, and enrolled for service. 38 U.S.C. § 1111. Injuries or disease occurring during active duty generally will be deemed to have been incurred in line of duty. Id. § 105(a); see also Shedden v. Principi, 381 F.3d 1163, 1167 (Fed.Cir.2004). For certain medical conditions, the law presumes service connection. See 38 U.S.C. §§ 1112, 1116, 1118. Neither the claimant nor VA has any responsibility to submit or gather evidence relating to service connection if the claimant's particular condition is statutorily presumed to be service-connected. Routen v. West, 142 F.3d 1434, 1440 (Fed.Cir.1998) (The presumption affords a party, for whose benefit the presumption runs, the luxury of not having to produce specific evidence to establish the point at issue.). By implication, when these presumptions are inapplicable, evidence must be presented to support service-connection. Whether submitted by the claimant or VAas determined by sections 5103 and 5103A, for examplethe evidence must rise to the requisite level set forth in section 5107(b).