Court Opinion

ID: 9451797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:23:53.188327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:53.383993
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(concurring in the result) :
I find this case far less open-and-shut than do my brethren. Section 265(b) provides for payments to the schools, for their reporting services, “at the rate of $1.00 per month”, but the statute is not precise as to the number of months this compensation is to continue. The court now stresses the part of the section which establishes the allowance at the dollar rate “per month for each eligible veteran enrolled in and attending such institution” (emphasis added), as indicating that the top limit for the monthly payments is the total number of months the particular veteran is enrolled. This is certainly a reasonable interpretation, but the main difficulty, for me, is that the same section, later on, prohibits an allowance to the school “for the month or months during which such reports or certifications were not submitted as required by the Administrator” (emphasis added). This could well imply that payments are to be made for each separate month during which a report is properly filed as required, regardless of the total of such months. How should we resolve this statutory problem? The legislative history, in my view, sheds no light whatever; the committee reports simply parrot the terms of the bill. The opinions in our two prior cases on this subject refer to payment for the months “in which” or “during” which a report is “received” by the Veterans Administration or “furnished” by the institution (Radio-Television Training Ass’n, Inc. v. United States, 163 F.Supp. 637, 645, 143 Ct.Cl. 416, 427-428, (1958); Central Technical Institute v. United States, 284 F.2d 377, 378, 151 Ct.Cl. 693, 695 (1960)), but the majority is probably correct in saying that in those cases the court did not have the present issue in mind. The question must be regarded as still open.
I am moved by two factors to agree with the Government’s construction of the statute. The first is that the Administrator of Veterans Affairs, after our Central Technical Institute decision, promulgated a regulation (38 C.F.R. § 21.2303(c), as amended) limiting, in effect, the total payments to the number of months of the veteran’s enrollment. Since the exact scope and policy of the statute seem to me unclear, I cannot say that this reasonable regulation is an invalid departure from a plain statutory command. It must therefore be respected. See, e. g., United States v. Shimer, 367 U.S. 374, 381-382, 81 S.Ct. 1554, 6 L.Ed.2d 908 (1961); Mitchell v. Budd, 350 U.S. 473, 480, 76 S.Ct. 527, 100 L.Ed. 565 (1956); Commissioner v. South Texas Lumber Co., 333 U.S. 496, 501, 68 S.Ct. 695, 92 L.Ed. 831 (1948).
The second argument I find persuasive is that plaintiff’s interpretation would differentiate among schools depending upon whether a report happened to be received by the Veterans Administration in one month or another. This could hinge on the method of delivery, the speed of the mails, or the deliberate choice of the institution — all of which should be irrelevant to the right to an allowance. As defendant points out, if the training certificate is completed on the final day of the month of enrollment and then delivered on the same day, the school receives only one payment for the two reports ; if, however, the certificate is mailed on the last day of the month and arrives on the first of the next month, there will be separate payments. Such immaterial variances, built into plain*255tiff’s theory, counsel against accepting the view that a school is necessarily entitled to payment for each month during which a report happens to be filed. On the other hand, limiting the total allowance by the students’ period of enrollment avoids such discrepancies and puts schools on an equal basis.