## Facts

- David Henderson, a Korean War veteran discharged in 1952 due to paranoid schizophrenia, sought additional VA benefits for in-home care in 2001.
- The VA regional office denied the claim, and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals issued an adverse final decision.
- A statute required a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims within 120 days after the Board’s decision was mailed.
- Henderson filed his notice of appeal 15 days late while proceeding without counsel.
- He argued that the late filing should be excused through equitable tolling based on his mental illness and circumstances causing delay.
- After a Supreme Court decision characterizing a statutory appeal deadline in ordinary civil litigation as jurisdictional, the government contended the veterans’ deadline was similarly jurisdictional.

## Issues

1. Whether the 120-day time limit in 38 U.S.C. § 7266(a) for filing a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims is jurisdictional, thereby barring equitable tolling.
2. Whether § 7266(a) is instead a nonjurisdictional claim-processing rule that does not limit the Veterans Court’s adjudicatory power.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed and remanded.
- The Court held that § 7266(a)’s 120-day deadline does not have jurisdictional consequences and therefore is not a jurisdictional bar.
- The Court did not decide whether equitable tolling applied on these facts; it held only that the deadline is nonjurisdictional.
- Justice Alito delivered the opinion; Justice Kagan did not participate.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory time limit is jurisdictional only when Congress clearly states that it restricts the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.
- Absent a clear statement, filing deadlines are presumed to be nonjurisdictional claim-processing rules, even if mandatory when properly invoked.
- Courts should avoid treating procedural requirements as jurisdictional because jurisdictional defects must be raised and policed at any time and can cause unfairness and waste.
- Statutory text, structure, and context matter; the veterans’ benefits system’s informal, claimant-protective design supported reading the deadline as nonjurisdictional.
- A prior decision treating a different statutory appeal deadline as jurisdictional did not create a general rule that all statutory appeal deadlines are jurisdictional.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the 120-day deadline to appeal a VA Board decision to the Veterans Court is a nonjurisdictional claim-processing rule, reversing lower courts that treated untimeliness as automatically defeating jurisdiction and leaving open whether equitable tolling is warranted in the individual case.


Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428 (2011)