WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court unexpectedly passed up an opportunity to overturn a bureaucracy-empowering legal doctrine when, on June 26, it ruled against a Marine Corps veteran seeking government-provided medical benefits.
When the Supreme Court agreed Dec. 10, 2018, to hear the veteran’s appeal of a denial of benefits, it was widely interpreted in the legal community as indicating that the high court, its conservative wing having recently been bolstered by the addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was considering tearing away at the legal underpinnings of the modern administrative state.
