Court Opinion

ID: 9495728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:09:13.415993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:10.410699
License: Public Domain

*1311PLAGER, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
It is with a genuine sense of sadness that I join Chief Judge Mayer’s dissent. I fully agree with his conclusion that the Government has deprived these retired veterans of their rights to the promised medical care. My sadness is not occasioned by any flaw in his well-reasoned and carefully-researched opinion. His clear and concise opinion demonstrates that the law is at least as much in .the veteran claimants’ favor as the opposite opinion, to which a majority of the court subscribes, argues to the contrary.
What is sad is that once again this court in dealing with the veterans matters entrusted to us places an ability to parse statutes and rules in the Government’s favor above the more fundamental obligation to apply the law, when the issue is an open one, in favor of the veteran. The Supreme Court has stated that obligation in terms of “the canon that provisions for benefits to members of the Armed Forces are to be construed in the beneficiaries’ favor.” King v. St. Vincent’s Hosp., 502 U.S. 215, 221 n. 9, 112 S.Ct. 570, 116 L.Ed.2d 578 (1991) (citations omitted). The Court cited that canon specifically to point out that, in the case before it, even if the statutory construction on which it relied was undercut by other statutes, the canon nevertheless would have required the Court to read the statute in the veteran’s favor. The weight of the canon was again reaffirmed in Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 117-18, 115 S.Ct. 552, 130 L.Ed.2d 462 (1994).
The canon expresses the Court’s understanding of and appreciation for the contribution that the military services make to the free society we so willingly enjoy, and the obligations that the society has taken upon itself, equally willingly, in exchange for that contribution. What I find most troubling is the insistence by the Government, represented before us by the Department of Justice, to define the Government’s justice as a ‘win’ on any basis possible. I find this troubling in the-instant ease even without reference to the special status of veterans. Abraham Lincoln said, and indeed it is engraved on the front of our courthouse, that “it is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same, between private individuals.”
Perhaps the problem is that, with the demise of compulsory military service, too few of our citizens today have the experience of knowing firsthand what the military is about. When an individual, at the behest of the government acting through its authorized representatives, devotes essentially his or her productive lifetime to the defense of the rest of us, undertakes training that itself is inherently more dangerous than the typical civilian occupation, and stands ready to go in harm’s way so that others need not, it ill behooves us— either the Executive or the Judiciary — to display the kind of public ingratitude that this case does. In my lifetime what peace we have enjoyed in this country has been the result not of yielding to threats, not of the diplomats’ vague and hollow promises easily broken, but of the ability of this country to display military might and to use it effectively when all else fails. I see nothing to suggest that that will not be the case during the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.
It is appropriate for the citizens of this country to be grateful to those who have given their lives to defend the country, and to those who are prepared to follow in that *1312noble tradition. Congress in its legislation throughout our history has established a clear policy of national recognition, for those who serve. When the law, to which we judges owe our first allegiance, is essentially in equipoise, as I believe the case to be here, we are free — indeed, it is our obligation — to invoke the principle that underlies the canon the Supreme Court has given us, and thus to arrive at a result that is in accord with the mandate of our forebears: “Justice, Justice Shalt Thou Pursue.” 1
I respectfully dissent from the decision denying relief to these veterans.

. Deuteronomy 16:20.