{"id":88112,"date":"2026-02-19T23:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=88112"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:47:17","slug":"supreme-court-delivers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=88112","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Delivers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7\u20132 in <strong>Bufkin v. Collins<\/strong> that federal appellate courts do not have to independently reassess how the Department of Veterans Affairs applies the \u201cbenefit-of-the-doubt\u201d rule in disability claims. This rule says that when evidence for and against a claim is evenly balanced, the decision should favor the veteran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case involved veterans Joshua Bufkin and Norman Thornton, whose PTSD-related claims were denied despite closely balanced medical evidence. Lower courts upheld those denials without re-evaluating how the VA applied the rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said appellate courts should defer to the VA\u2019s factual findings unless there is a clear error. Legal questions still receive independent review, but medical and factual determinations get limited oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision means veterans appealing VA rulings must now show significant mistakes, not just balanced evidence, potentially making successful appeals more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=88055\">also read&#8230;..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7\u20132 in Bufkin v. Collins that federal appellate courts do not have to independently reassess how the Department of Veterans Affairs applies&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88113,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88112\/revisions\/88113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}