Vet wins at US Supreme Court!!!!!

[broncovet]

. The VA "interpreted" "Thou Shall not Steal" to mean "Stealing is not recommended 12% of the time".   Remember, this is where VA is spending our benefit/health care dollars...on US Supreme Court lawyers to fight Vets.  I thought VA was supposed to care for Vets, not fight them??  My solution is to fire 75% of the  lawyers who work for VA and hire doctors to cut the wait time, instead.  

The Veterans Affairs Department lost a Supreme Court battle in a controversial lawsuit that accused it of denying federal contracts to veteran-owned businesses. The high court ruled that the VA failed to comply with the law.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the federal government had violated the so-called “Rule of Two” when the VA awarded a contract for an emergency notification system to a company not owned by a veteran.

Read more

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The provision is part of the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006, which stipulates that only small veteran-owned businesses “shall be” considered when two or more are likely to submit reasonable bids for a major contract.

“The surrounding subsections of §8127 [section of the law] confirm that Congress used the word ‘shall’ in §8127(d) as a command,” the Supreme Court ruled. “The word ‘shall’ usually connotes a requirement, unlike the word ‘may,’ which implies discretion,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote.

The VA’s decision to award the contract to an outsider was challenged in a 2012 lawsuit, Kingdomware Technologies v. US, which was filed by a permanently disabled US Army veteran. The complaint accused the government of thwarting the law, as the VA did not restrict competition using the “Rule of Two.”

The veteran petitioner had lost twice before, when two lower courts, the Court of Federal Claims and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ruled in favor of the VA.

In both cases, the judges ruled that the department was not required to use the “Rule of Two” in all contracting. The federal appeals court said that the VA did not have to comply with the rule if it awarded between 7 and 12 percent of all contracts to companies owned by disabled veterans.

READ MORE: Over 125,000 veterans denied benefits by the VA – report

The Supreme Court weighed in and reversed the decision.

“The Act does not allow the Department to evade the Rule of Two on the ground that it has already met its contracting goals or on the ground that the Department has placed an order through the FSS [federal supply schedule],” Justice Thomas wrote.

The Supreme Court noted that Congress provided two exceptions to the “Rule of Two,” both of which allow the department to use non-competitive and sole-source contracts for contracts below specific dollar thresholds, but ruled that neither of them applied in this case.

It has also rejected the department’s argument that requiring it to apply the “Rule of Two” whenever it buys anything would “hamper mundane purchases like ‘griddles or food slicers.’”

Edited June 17, 2016 by broncovet

[Andyman73]

Now if we could only get the Supreme Court to rule in favor of all Vets' claims for compensation, on the grounds that the initial claim denial rate of 85% is unreasonable, and unlikely that 85% of all initial claims are unworthy or fraudulent.  And that the VA's stance of "guilty till proven innocent" is detrimental to the treatment of all Veterans, and goes against their basic rights to be taken care of in the manner that we were promised upon enlisting, or, as in generations before, being drafted.

[broncovet]

Agree, Andyman.   The VA hides behind the "Auer" defense, also known as 
"Chevron deference", and its high time the US Supreme Court put a stop to that.  

In Chevron,  the US Supreme Court decided that, unless rebutted, the Agency determination stands.   

In other words, if the VA "decides to interpret"  the word "shall" to mean "will not unless the Vet contracts are below 12%" ", they are free to do so.  This is a big problem with the BOD (benefit of the doubt), and the doctrine of equipose.  In the BOD, the "tie" is to go to the Veteran.  However, the VA has interpreted BOD to mean, if there is a tie, the government saves money and denies the claim, or, delays it indefinately.  

Edited June 17, 2016 by broncovet