## Facts

- Lionel Guerra, a Vietnam-era Marine veteran, had multiple service-connected disabilities, each rated below 100% (including high individual ratings for gunshot wounds, PTSD, leg/thigh injuries, and neuropathy).
- Using the VA combined ratings table, his multiple disabilities produced a combined schedular rating of 100%.
- Guerra sought special monthly compensation (SMC) under 38 U.S.C. § 1114(s), which provides additional compensation to a veteran who has “a service-connected disability rated as total” plus either (i) additional disabilities independently ratable at 60% or more, or (ii) permanent housebound status.
- The VA denied the claim because no single disability was rated at 100%; the 100% total resulted only from combining multiple disabilities.
- VA regulation 38 C.F.R. § 3.350(i) construed § 1114(s) to require “a single service-connected disability rated as 100 percent.”
- The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims affirmed the denial, and Guerra appealed to the Federal Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether 38 U.S.C. § 1114(s) permits SMC eligibility based on a combined 100% disability rating from multiple disabilities, or instead requires at least one single disability individually rated at 100%.
2. Whether the VA’s interpretation in 38 C.F.R. § 3.350(i) is entitled to Chevron deference despite the pro-veteran canon of construction.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed the Veterans Court.
- The court held that § 1114(s) requires at least one single service-connected disability rated at 100%; a combined 100% rating from multiple disabilities does not satisfy the statute.
- The court concluded that, to the extent § 1114(s) is ambiguous, the VA’s regulation requiring a single 100% disability is a reasonable interpretation entitled to Chevron deference.
- The court rejected arguments that TDIU concepts or nonbinding manual language altered the statutory or regulatory requirement.

## Legal Principles

- For SMC under 38 U.S.C. § 1114(s), “a service-connected disability rated as total” is satisfied only by an individual disability rated 100%, not by a combined 100% rating.
- Statutory use of singular (“a disability”) versus plural (“disability or disabilities”) can indicate Congress’s intent to require a single qualifying condition for a prerequisite.
- When a veterans’ benefits statute is ambiguous and the VA adopts a reasonable interpretive regulation within its authority, courts defer under Chevron.
- The pro-veteran canon does not override Chevron deference to a reasonable VA interpretation of an ambiguous statute.

## Conclusion

Because Guerra’s total schedular rating of 100% resulted from combining multiple disabilities and he lacked any single disability rated at 100%, he was ineligible for SMC at the § 1114(s) rate, and the VA’s regulation imposing that requirement was upheld as a reasonable interpretation.


Guerra v. Shinseki, 642 F.3d 1046 (Fed. Cir. 2011)