Opinion ID: 1086802
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fair Process

Text: In Thurber v. Brown, 5 Vet. App. 119 (1993), the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims created what became known as the “fair process” doctrine, holding that, before the Board relies on any evidence developed or obtained subsequent to the issuance of the most recent Statement of the Case or Supplemental Statement of the Case, the Board must “provide a claimant with reasonable notice of such evidence . . . and a reasonable opportunity for the claimant to respond to it.” Id. at 126. The claim- 8 JIMMY SPRINKLE v. SHINSEKI ant must be permitted to respond with not only argument and comment, but also provide additional evidence. Austin v. Brown, 6 Vet. App. 547, 551 (1994). This court has not explicitly addressed the fair process doctrine. See Gambill, 576 F.3d at 1310–11 (discussing the fair process concerns involved in a denial of the claimant’s ability to serve interrogatories on a medical examiner, but concluding that the denial was harmless error). When the Court of Appeals for Veteran’s Claims created a procedural right in the name of fair process, the court primarily relied on the underlying VA adjudicatory scheme. Gambill, 576 F.3d at 1310. At the time, neither this court nor the Supreme Court had ruled on the extent to which applicants for government benefits had a property right in their expectation. Thurber, 5 Vet. App. at 123. Instead, the court premised its holding upon the considerations of fair process announced in Gonzales v. United States, 348 U.S. 407 (1955). In Gonzales, the Supreme Court held that despite silence in the applicable statute and regulations as to a particular procedural requirement, the requirement was implicit in the statute and regulations when “viewed against our underlying concepts of procedural regularity and basic fair play.” Id. at 412. Since that time, this court has held the Due Process Clause of the Constitution applies to proceedings in which the VA decides whether claimants are eligible for veterans’ benefits. Cushman v. Shinseki, 576 F.3d 1290, 1299– 1300 (Fed. Cir. 2009). In light of this precedent and Thurber, the question becomes whether the fair process doctrine applies in this case. We conclude that it does not.