Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki

David Henderson (plaintiff) was a Korean War veteran who had been granted a 100 percent service-connected-disability rating for paranoid schizophrenia in 1992. In 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) (defendant) denied his claim for supplemental benefits. Henderson appealed to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (the board), which denied his claim. Henderson then appealed the board’s decision to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (veterans court). Under 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a), such appeals were to be filed with the veterans court within 120 days after the board’s decision was properly mailed. Henderson missed this filing deadline by 15 days. The veterans court initially dismissed Henderson’s appeal as untimely but granted his motion for reconsideration based on his argument that the deadline should be equitably tolled because his illness had caused the late filing. The veterans court eventually held that the filing deadline was a jurisdictional rule and could not be equitably tolled, based in part on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Bowles v. Russell, which held that a particular filing deadline in civil litigation was jurisdictional. Henderson appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which upheld the veterans court’s decision. Henderson appealed, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.