Eddie N. Dela Cruz v. Robert Wilkie, Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Over the last decade since Congress passed remedial legislation creating Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation (“FVEC”), an astronomical fifty-six percent (56%) of all claimants have been denied that one-time benefit by the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”). This notorious failure to effectuate Section 1002, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”), has been the subject of an inter-agency task force convened by the White House, two hearings before the House of Representatives, and now a Federal Circuit opinion. Below, the parties disputed the plain language in Section 1002 establishing “eligible persons” to receive the FVEC benefit. The Federal Circuit held that the VA could by-pass express eligibility criteria in the statute in favor of a “service” determination by the United States Army that would be “conclusive and binding on the VA” irrespective of the benefit’s remedial nature and “regardless of whatever other evidence documenting service the claimant provides to the VA.” According to the court of appeals, the VA need not make any independent assessment of FVEC eligibility. The question presented is: Whether the Federal Circuit has erred in its narrow construction of ARRA Section 1002—a remedial veteran’s statute providing a benefit for Filipinos who were “call[ed] and order[ed] into the service of the armed forces of the United States” during WWII—by not following the pro-veteran canon requiring that the Act be “liberally construed for the benefit of those who left private life to serve their country in its hour of great need.”