Morris v. Shulkin, 677 F. App'x 681

William Morris served in the U.S. Army (1966–1969) and later received a dependency allowance for his daughter while she also received Chapter 35 educational benefits.
In September 2003 the VA determined this created a duplication and notified Morris of an $8,857.36 overpayment to be repaid.
Morris requested a waiver of recoupment; the Board of Veterans Appeals denied the waiver in January 2012.
The Veterans Court and this court previously affirmed the Board’s decision in Morris v. Shinseki (Fed. Cir. 2013).
On July 1, 2016 Morris filed a petition for extraordinary relief (construed as a writ of mandamus) with the Veterans Court seeking waiver again; the Veterans Court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
Morris appealed the dismissal to this court; the court reviewed whether it had jurisdiction and whether Morris’s constitutional due process claim had merit.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether court can review VA fault-balancing for waiver of overpayment	Morris: when both VA and veteran are at fault, decision should favor the veteran; thus waiver required	VA/Veterans Court: resolving fault-balance requires applying law to facts and is outside this court's statutory jurisdiction	Dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; court cannot review law-applied-to-fact balancing
Whether Veterans Court denial violated due process	Morris: Veterans Court denied his constitutional right to due process	Veterans Court: Morris received fair notice and multiple opportunities to challenge the overpayment; proceedings were adequate	Court has jurisdiction over constitutional claim but finds no merit — due process was satisfied

Morris v. Shinseki, [citation="549 F. App'x 973"] (Fed. Cir. 2013) (prior opinion affirming Board and addressing jurisdictional and constitutional arguments)
Cushman v. Shinseki, 576 F.3d 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (due process requires notice and opportunity to be heard before benefits reduced)