United States Ninth Circuit

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action claiming that defendant unlawfully took a portion of plaintiff-committed inmate's Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits each month and applied the money to partially defray the cost of plaintiff's care at a state hospital, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where 38 U.S.C. section 5301(a)(1), when read in combination with pertinent regulations such as 38 C.F.R. section 13.71, does not prohibit direct payments of VA benefits to a state hospital for ongoing veteran patient care.

Appellate Information

• Argued 06/04/2009
• Decided 09/09/2009
• Published 09/09/2009

Judges

• MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge:, Before: WILLIAM A. FLETCHER, RICHARD R. CLIFTON and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Paul Gossett, pro se plaintiff-appellant., Charles C. Lifland, Jeremy Maltby, and A. Patricia Klemic, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, CA, amicus curiae in support of plaintiff-appellant Paul Gossett., Tanya L. Jackson, UCLA School of Law Ninth Circuit Clinic, Los Angeles, CA, amicus curiae in support of plaintiff-appellant Paul Gossett.


• For Appellees:
  
• Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General of the State of California, and Harry T. Gower, Deputy Attorney General, San Francisco, CA, for the defendant-appellee Al Czech.