Today the Supreme Court issued its first opinion for the October 2022 term, a short unanimous opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in Arellano v. McDonough. The Court ususally issues a few opinions in the Fall, but not this year. For the first time in modern memory, the Court failed to issue any opinions until January. It has been a term of longer arguments and fewer opinions.
Arellano concerned veterans' disability benefits, and Justice Barret authored a clear and brief opinion. Here is her summary:
This case concerns the effective date of an award of disability compensation to a veteran of the United States military. The governing statute provides that the effective date of the award "shall not be earlier" than the day on which the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) receives the veteran's application for benefits. But the statute specifies 16 exceptions, one of which is relevant here: If the VA receives the application within a year of the veteran's discharge, the effective date is the day after the veteran's discharge. We must decide whether this exception is subject to equitable tolling, a doctrine that would allow some applications filed outside the 1-year period to qualify for the "day after discharge" effective date. We hold that the provision cannot be equitably tolled.
