The US Supreme Court Wednesday ruled in a 6-3 decision that veterans cannot seek “collateral review at any time on grounds of ‘clear and unmistakable error” due to the invalidation of a regulation.

In George v. McDonough, Kevin George, a Marine veteran, brought a lawsuit because he was denied disability benefits by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). George was denied benefits due a regulation stipulating that conditions predating service may not qualify for disability benefits. Years after his application was denied the regulation was removed by the VA. Due to the regulation being removed George tried to get the denial decision overturned as a “clear and unmistakable error”.  The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims denied George’s claim, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the denial.

In the opinion the court found that the removal of the regulation after George’s benefits were denied did not support an appeal to revise the decision. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion and said “The invalidation of a VA regulation after a veteran’s benefits decision becomes final cannot support a claim for collateral relief based on clear and unmistakable error.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch stated in his dissent that the VA’s failure to give George a hearing was “inexcusable”. Gorsuch asserts that internal audits of the Veteran’s Courts show a substantial number of the claims brought to them have been improperly applied. Gorsuch also says “Congress did not codify the part of the old agency regulation on which the Court relies.” He continued by saying that the court “should not be in the business of adding words to the law, let alone to insulate badly mistaken agency decisions from any chance of correction.”

Gorsuch ended his dissent by saying “I would not add to these problems by shielding the Department from the inconvenience of having to answer for its own clear and unmistakable errors.”