Groves v. Shinseki

In 1982, James Groves (plaintiff) filed a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) (defendant) for service-connected-disability benefits for schizophrenia. The VA denied his claim. Approximately two decades later, Groves sought to reopen his claim, arguing that the VA’s decision was based on clear and unmistakable error (CUE). The matter came before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (the board), which held in 2004 that there had been no CUE in the VA’s denial because the evidence before the VA at that time failed to show that Groves’s schizophrenia was connected to his in-service mental disorders. Groves appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (the veterans court). The veterans court upheld the board’s decision, and Groves next appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the federal circuit). The federal circuit held that the VA’s 1982 decision had been based on CUE and reversed the veterans court’s decision. Groves then applied to the veterans court for an award of legal fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). In his application, he alleged that the VA’s position regarding its duty to assist him was not substantially justified. The VA opposed Groves’s EAJA application, including on the grounds that it was based on a faulty identification of the duty to assist as the main issue in his claim, rather than CUE.