Opinion ID: 587397
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard of Review Prior to the 1989 Amendments

Text: 38 When the vaccine compensation program was created by Congress, it was anticipated that a substantial number of cases requiring these fact-specific determinations would have to be made. Claimed injuries from these vaccines were already in litigation on a variety of common law theories, and it was recognized that, because of the nature of these vaccines, future cases were unavoidable. See generally H.Rep. No. 908, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 6-7, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6344, 6346-48. 39 Congress recognized that expeditious resolution of a large number of new and heavily fact specific claims would require additional personnel--the cases could not simply be added to the existing workload of an agency or court. Two options were available. One was to assign some sort of initial fact finding/determination role to an administrative agency or extra-judicial body. Another option was to keep the process entirely within the court system. Congress first considered a proposal that claims be resolved by a panel of persons selected from a list, provided by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, of individuals in the region in which the claimant resides who are willing to serve as members of a hearing panel. Participants in the hearing process would have been required to waive their right to trial and the decision of the hearing panel was to be binding and not subject to any administrative or judicial review. H.R. 1780, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. §§ 2103-08 (1985). This approach ultimately was discarded, and Congress turned instead to a court-based process. 40 After first giving jurisdiction to the district courts, 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-11(a)(1) (Supp. IV 1986), 6 Congress reconsidered and gave jurisdiction to the Claims Court. 42 U.S.C. § 300-11(a)(1) (Supp. V 1987). Congress created within the Claims Court an Office of Special Masters, and authorized the employment of qualified individuals to perform the fact finding function for the Program. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, Pub.L. No. 101-239, § 6601, 103 Stat. 2106, 2286-88 (1989). 7 The role spelled out in the statute for the special master was to take evidence and propose findings of fact and conclusions of law for consideration by the Claims Court judge. 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-12(c)(2) (Supp. V. 1987). The Claims Court judge was free to undertake a review of the record ... and ... make a de novo determination of any matter and issue its judgment accordingly.... 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-12(d)(1) (Supp. V. 1987). 41 In turn, this court's review of the Claims Court's determination was authorized by s 300aa-12(e) (Supp. V. 1987), which stated that 42 [t]he findings of fact and conclusions of law of the United States Claims Court on a petition shall be final determinations of the matters involved, except that [the parties] may obtain review of the judgment of the court in the United States court of appeals for the Federal Circuit.... 43 No express standard for our review was stated. 44 In Bunting v. Secretary of the Dep't. of Health and Human Servs., 931 F.2d 867, reh'g denied, this court considered, as a matter of first impression, the nature and scope of our review of cases so appealed. We concluded that we review the Claims Court's decision for correctness of law, and clear error in its factual findings. Id. at 871. This formulation is the standard one applied by courts of appeals to appeals from judgments of trial courts. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). 45