Hamill v. Collins bars implicit denial of VA claims under the Appeals Modernization Act: the VA must explicitly identify the issue it is deciding and say how it decided it. Bee v. United States likewise requires liberal consideration when combat- or MST-related PTSD or TBI may have contributed to a service member’s discharge or fitness determination.
Two decisions out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this year — Bee v. United States, and its cousin Hamill v. Collins — took a hard look at that kind of government reasoning and did something the system does not do nearly often enough. The court told the government it does not get to rewrite the law to make its own job easier.
Here’s the map: first Bee, which is about whether you were fit; then Hamill, which is about whether the VA can pretend it never decided your claim at all; then what both mean for you if you served and got shortchanged.
| Comparison Point | Bee v. United States | Hamill v. Collins |
|---|---|---|
| Decided | July 16, 2026 | February 4, 2026 |
| The question | Were you fit for duty? | Can the VA decide your claim by saying nothing? |
| Who got it wrong | Board for Correction of Naval Records | Department of Veterans Affairs |
| The holding | Liberal consideration applies to the fitness determination | The VA cannot deny a claim by silence |
| Who it helps | Veterans denied a military medical retirement | Veterans with issues left unaddressed in a VA decision |
| Key date | Applies on remand now | VA decisions issued on or after February 19, 2019 |
| Result | Vacated and remanded | Vacated and remanded |
Bee v. United States: Liberal Consideration Applies to Fitness Determinations
What Happened to William Olas Bee
Picture a Marine. Four tours in Afghanistan. On his third, a head injury. On his fourth, IEDs collapse a building on him and his men and kill two of them.
He comes home with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, gets rated 100 percent disabled by the VA, and — here’s the part that ought to make you set down your coffee — he was never once sent to a medical board to decide whether those wounds made him unfit to keep serving. He was quietly separated under a force-shaping program, handed a DD-214 that says, “FORCE SHAPING-VSP,” and shown the door (Bee v. United States, No. 2024-2306, slip op. at 2–5 (Fed. Cir. July 16, 2026)).
That Marine is William Olas Bee. And for the better part of a decade, the Board for Correction of Naval Records looked at that record and concluded he was “fit for duty.” Twice.
Let me tell you what fit for duty looks like from where I sit, after twenty-six years in uniform in the JAG Corps and a whole lot of years since defending the men and women who wear it. It does not look like a rifleman who got promoted into a schoolhouse billet teaching chaplains and corpsmen because his brain and his nervous system were never going back to the line. But that schoolhouse assignment is exactly what the Board pointed to. Bee could stand in front of a classroom, so — problem solved, no retirement, thanks for your service. That was the logic. I am not making that up.
What Is Liberal Consideration?
Let me define the key term up front and then hold it steady, because the whole case turns on it.
The Liberal Consideration Standard Under 10 U.S.C. § 1552(h)
Liberal consideration is a lenient standard. Congress built it into the correction-board statute, 10 U.S.C. § 1552(h), for a specific and honorable reason: when a veteran’s PTSD or TBI is related to combat or to military sexual trauma, the board does not get to demand airtight proof that the condition caused the discharge. It has to credit the possibility.
The statute says the board “shall . . . review the claim with liberal consideration to the claimant that [PTSD] or [TBI] . . . potentially contributed to the circumstances resulting in the discharge or dismissal or to the original characterization of the claimant’s discharge” (10 U.S.C. § 1552(h)(1)–(2)(B), Bee, slip op. at 17–18).
Why Does Liberal Consideration Exist?
The reason is stated plainly in the underlying policy the statute codified:
“It is unreasonable to expect the same level of proof for injustices committed years ago when TBI; mental health conditions, such as PTSD; and victimology were far less understood than they are today.”
Bee, slip op. at 24 (quoting the Kurta Memo).
Three Errors the Federal Circuit Found in the BCNR’s Decision
Now here’s where the government got cute.
After losing a 2023 case called Doyon, the Department of Defense issued a memo — April 2024, if you’re keeping score — announcing that liberal consideration applies to why you were discharged, but not to the medical judgment about whether you were actually fit. In other words: we’ll be generous about the paperwork reason on your DD-214, but when it comes to the one determination that decides whether you get a medical retirement and TRICARE for your family, you get the cold, hard, prove-every-inch standard. Two separate lanes. How convenient.
Error One: Rewriting § 1552(h) to Exclude Fitness
The Federal Circuit was not buying what the government was selling. The panel — Judges Reyna, Clevenger, and Chen, with Judge Reyna writing — held that under the plain language of the statute, liberal consideration reaches the fitness determination too (Bee, slip op. at 23).
And the court did not exactly whisper it:
“The government’s position effectively asks this court to rewrite 10 U.S.C. § 1552(h) to except fitness determinations from liberal consideration, which we cannot do. We only interpret the law; we do not write it.”
Bee, slip op. at 22 (citing Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 177 (1803)).
When a federal appeals court reaches back 223 years to Marbury v. Madison to remind you what a court is for, that’s the judicial equivalent of a sergeant major saying your name in a very quiet voice. You do not want to be on the receiving end of it. The DoD was.
That was error number one. The court found two more.
Error Two: Grading an Infantry Unit Leader on a Schoolhouse Job
Under the Navy’s own binding instruction, SECNAVINST 1850.4E, § 3301, the sole standard for a disability retirement is unfitness to perform the duties of your “office, grade, rank or rating.” The board is supposed to relate your disability to the duties you’d “reasonably be expected to perform” in that rating (Bee, slip op. at 11).
Bee’s rating was Infantry Unit Leader. So, what duties did the Board identify for an Infantry Unit Leader? None. It skipped that step entirely and graded him on his schoolhouse job instead. The court held that was legal error — you cannot decide a man can’t perform duties you never bothered to identify ( Bee, slip op. at 12–13). And the Board’s excuse — that the burden was on Bee, not on the Board — earned a crisp correction: a claimant’s burden to prove unfitness “does not relieve the BCNR of properly applying the legal standard” (Bee, slip op. at 12).
Error Three: Ignoring Deployability Under SECNAVINST 1850.4E § 3304
Error number three lived in the next section over. Section 3304 lists four factors the board “must consider” when deciding whether you can reasonably perform your duties:
- Common military tasks
- Physical fitness tests
- Deployability
- Special qualifications
The Board blew past two of them, including deployability. The government’s answer? Deployability alone can’t be the sole basis for finding someone unfit, so ignoring it was harmless. The court’s response, and I’m paraphrasing only slightly: that deployability can’t be the whole ballgame does not mean the board gets to pretend it doesn’t exist.
“The government’s position effectively neuters deployability from the § 3304 inquiry. This is error.”
Bee, slip op. at 15.
Think about that word — deployability — for a combat-wounded infantryman with TBI and PTSD. Whether he can deploy is not a footnote to whether he can fight. It’s close to the whole question. Leaving it out isn’t a rounding error. It’s leaving the main gun off the tank and calling the vehicle mission-capable.
Bee’s Bottom Line: Vacated and Remanded
Bottom line on Bee: vacated and remanded, costs to the appellant (Bee, slip op. at 25). The Board must go back and do it right. That means four things:
- Apply the lenient standard
- Say out loud that it’s applying it,
- Identify the real duties of the real rating
- Weigh deployability like it means something
Because it does.
Hamill v. Collins: The VA Can’t Deny You by Saying Nothing
If Bee v. United States is about the standard the board must apply, Hamill v. Collins, No. 2024-1543 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 4, 2026), is about an older and sneakier trick — the art of denying a claim by simply never mentioning it.
What Happened to David Hamill
David Hamill is also a Marine. Served from 2009 to 2013, discharged Other Than Honorable. That OTH characterization is the gate. Walk through it, and your benefits open up; get stuck at it, and you’re standing outside in the rain.
Hamill asked the VA, more than once, to reopen and reconsider that character-of-discharge determination. In 2021, the VA granted him service connection for PTSD, denied some other conditions, and about his pending request to fix the discharge characterization — the thing standing between him and everything — it said precisely nothing.
Not yes. Not no. Nothing.
The End of the Implicit Denial Doctrine
For years, courts tolerated a doctrine called “implicit denial.” The idea was that if the VA ruled on some things and stayed silent on others, the silence counted as a denial you were then on the clock to appeal.
Miss the window on the denial you were never actually told about, and your claim — with its original effective date and all the back pay riding on it — evaporates. Handy system. For the VA.
The Federal Circuit ended it for the modern era. Under the Appeals Modernization Act, the court held:
“We hold that under the AMA, a veteran’s claims can no longer be implicitly denied.”
Hamill, slip op. at 5.
And:
“Under the AMA, a veteran has an appealable decision for a particular issue only if the decision gives him explicit notice that the issue is being adjudicated and how it is being decided.”
Hamill, slip op. at 14.
The court read the AMA version of 38 U.S.C. § 5104(b) to preclude the VA from denying by silence, and found Hamill’s 2021 decision could not, “as a matter of law,” implicitly deny his request to reopen the discharge determination (Hamill, slip op. at 15).
Disposition: vacated and remanded, costs to Mr. Hamill.
February 19, 2019: The Date That Decides Your Case
Here’s the part that pays the rent. If the VA never explicitly decided an issue, then under Hamill there was no appealable decision — and the clock you supposedly missed never started. That puts the claim’s pending status, your original effective date, and the back pay behind it back in play. Not guaranteed. In play.
The court said the scope is real but bounded: it applies to claims under the AMA, meaning decisions the VA issued “on or after February 19, 2019,” and it does not disturb legacy-system claims (Hamill, slip op. at 7).
Know that date. February 19, 2019. It’s the hinge.
The Honest Counterargument, Fairly Stated
I try not to sell miracles. Let me give the other side its due.
Neither of these cases hands anyone a check. Bee v. United States went back to the board, not to the bank; on remand, the BCNR could still, applying the correct lenient standard and identifying the right duties, decide the evidence doesn’t get Bee over the line. That’s possible. And Hamill is a notice-and-procedure ruling — it forces the VA to actually decide your issue; it does not guarantee the decision goes your way. There’s also a pending Supreme Court petition floating around the Hamill v. Collins question, so the last word may not be written.
All true. And none of them reaches the point. A fair process you can lose is still worth infinitely more than a rigged one you were never allowed to enter.
The whole game, for people like Bee and Hamill, was that the government skipped the step — the right standard, the actual decision — and dared anyone to notice. Now the step is mandatory. That changes outcomes even when it doesn’t guarantee them, because most of these cases were never lost on the merits. They were lost in the margins, on standards misapplied and claims quietly ignored. Close the margins, and a lot of good cases get a real hearing for the first time.
What You Actually Do Monday Morning
Enough theory. Here’s the operating rule, and it’s short enough to keep in your head.
Step 1: Check Whether Bee Is Your Lever
If you separated with combat-connected PTSD or TBI — or with MST in the mix — and you were denied a medical retirement, or you were never sent to a medical board at all, Bee is your lever. The board now must apply the lenient standard to your fitness, measure you against the real duties of your actual rating, and reckon with your deployability. If a board decision in your file did none of that, that decision is vulnerable.
Step 2: Check If Your VA Decision Dated On or After February 19, 2019
And if the VA handed you a decision on or after February 19, 2019, that granted or denied some of what you claimed while going stone silent on the rest — especially on a character-of-discharge question — those unaddressed issues may still be alive under Hamill v. Collins, original effective date and back pay and all.
Step 3: Ask Two Questions About Your Own Paperwork Tonight
- Did a board ever tell you, in plain words, what duties it measured you against — and did it say it was giving your evidence liberal consideration?
- Did the VA ever actually decide every issue you raised, or did it just quietly skip a few and hope you wouldn’t circle back?
If the answer to either one is the wrong answer, pull the file. Check the dates. Then call the Law Office of Will M. Helixon.
The Bottom Line
I’ve spent my whole career on both sides of the government’s table — as a prosecutor, as a defense counsel, as the guy training the defense counsel — and I’ll tell you the thing that still gets under my skin after all these years. It isn’t losing a hard case on the facts. Hard facts are honest. What gets me is watching the process get shaved down so the answer’s baked in before the veteran ever gets a fair look. A schoolhouse billet standing in for infantry duties. A silence standing in for a decision. Two words — “fitness determination” — the government tried to lift right out of a statute Congress wrote on purpose.
The Federal Circuit put those two words back. Twice. That’s not a technicality. That’s the difference between a system that serves the people who served, and one that just processes them.
The Law Office of Will M. Helixon represents service members and veterans worldwide. Our lawyers for veterans review correction board and VA decisions for exactly the errors described above.
FAQ
What Records Should I Collect Before Challenging a Correction Board Fitness Decision?
Collect the complete correction-board record, every prior application and decision, the DD-214, service and medical records, VA examinations and rating decisions, duty descriptions for the actual office, grade, rank, or rating, fitness reports, deployment limitations, profiles, and evidence explaining why no medical-board referral occurred. The point is not to build a taller stack of paper. It is to connect the condition to the duties, deployability, and fitness findings the board was required to address.
What Deadline Applies After Discovering an Omitted Issue in a VA Decision?
Under Hamill’s stated rule, no appeal deadline begins for an issue the VA never explicitly adjudicated under the AMA because no appealable decision was issued on that issue. That does not extend the deadlines for issues the VA expressly decided. Put the omission in writing promptly, request an explicit decision, and protect every separate deadline stated in the notice you received.
How Does a Veteran Ask the BCNR to Reconsider After Bee?
A veteran seeking BCNR reconsideration files a DD Form 149, attaches the prior Board decision, and — critically — supports the request with materials not previously presented to or considered by the Board, which is what the statute requires (10 U.S.C. § 1552(a)(3)). The request should state precisely where the Board failed to apply liberal consideration, identify the duties of the veteran’s actual rating, or weigh deployability and the other required fitness factors. Cite Bee as the authority governing how those questions must be decided. Ask for the prior denial to be set aside and the fitness question reconsidered under the correct legal standard. Confirm the BCNR’s current filing instructions before submitting, and do not assume that citing Bee restarts any filing deadline.
Does Hamill Apply to VA Decisions Issued Before February 19, 2019?
Not under the rule described in Hamill. The decision addresses the AMA system and VA decisions issued on or after February 19, 2019. Earlier legacy claims require a separate analysis.
Can an Issue Omitted From a VA Decision Keep Its Original Effective Date?
Potentially. If the VA never explicitly adjudicated the issue under the AMA, Hamill v. Collins may support the position that the claim remained pending. The original filing date still must be proved from the record, and the procedural history matters.
Does Bee v. United States Guarantee a Medical Retirement?
No. Bee requires the Board to use the correct standard and address the required fitness factors. It does not dictate the result on remand.
Does Hamill v. Collins Apply When the Omitted Issue Was Not a Character-of-Discharge Determination?
Its stated AMA notice rule is not limited to character-of-discharge determinations: the VA must identify the issue and state how it was decided. Whether Hamill v. Collins controls a different omitted issue depends on the decision date, procedural system, and notice language.
Can the VA Implicitly Deny a Claim After Hamill v. Collins?
No, not under the Appeals Modernization Act. For a VA decision issued on or after February 19, 2019, the veteran must receive explicit notice that the issue was decided and how (Hamill v. Collins, No. 2024-1543, slip op. at 14 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 4, 2026)).
This post is written for general educational purposes and is not legal advice to any person or matter.
