For veteran Floyd Johnson, justice delayed is justice denied
Floyd Johnson served in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1985 and was honorably discharged after a training exercise in Germany turned deadly. Decades later, while incarcerated in Florida, he was diagnosed with PTSD.
The VA rates disabilities on a scale from 0% to 100%, measuring how severely a condition impairs a veteran’s ability to function in daily life. The VA assessed Johnson’s PTSD at 80%. But because he was incarcerated for a felony conviction, a federal statute capped his benefits at the equivalent of a 10% rating.
In Johnson’s view, there is no justification for treating a veteran with severe PTSD as if his disability were minor simply because he’s in prison—and he brought that argument to federal district court, alleging the statute violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.
A federal court dismissed his case on a question that has divided courts across the country: Does a veteran have the right to bring that kind of challenge in federal district court at all? On June 8, Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court arguing that the answer is yes.
A question the Supreme Court must answer
Under a 1988 law called the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act, there is a specific channel for contesting individual VA benefit decisions—from a regional office, to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and finally to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The question is whether that system is the only avenue available, and whether veterans must exhaust the entire administrative process before any court will hear a constitutional challenge to a benefits statute.
The Eleventh Circuit said yes—but it is in the minority. Six other federal appeals courts have held that district courts retain that jurisdiction, with only the Eighth Circuit siding with the Eleventh. The Supreme Court agreed to take the case, acknowledging that the split needed to be resolved.
PLF’s argument
The argument builds on Axon Enterprise v. FTC, a 2023 Supreme Court decision holding that when someone challenges an agency’s fundamental authority, that claim belongs in federal district court—not in the agency’s own review process.
PLF argues the same logic applies here. A veteran challenging the constitutionality of a law—not appealing a benefits determination—is raising exactly the kind of claim that courts should be able to hear immediately. Treating a constitutional challenge as just another benefits appeal forces veterans to seek relief from the system they are challenging—and by the time any court can act, the harm is already done.
PLF’s brief puts the stakes plainly: “The separation of powers is not a mere structural nicety—it is the constitutional mechanism that preserves individual liberty against government overreach.” When constitutional challenges are routed through the agencies whose authority is contested, that mechanism loses its power—and ordinary people are the ones who end up hurt. “By the time agency proceedings conclude, the constitutional violation has already done its damage, and no appellate court can restore the rights the party lost.”
The Court’s answer will determine whether the Constitution’s guarantees mean something before an agency proceeding concludes, or only after.
The case, Johnson v. United States Congress, is expected to be argued in the Supreme Court’s next term.
