118
Opinion of the Court
ble after applying the rule that interpretive doubt is to be resolved in the veteran's favor, see King v. St. Vincent's Hospital, 502 U. S. 215, 220-221, n. 9 (1991)). But the Government cannot plausibly make even this claim here. Ambiguity is a creature not of definitional possibilities but of statutory context, see id., at 221 ("[T]he meaning of statutory language, plain or not, depends on context"), and this context negates a fault reading. Section 1151 provides compensability not only for an "injury," but for an "aggravation of an injury" as well. "Injury" as used in this latter phrase refers to a condition prior to the treatment in question, and hence cannot carry with it any suggestion of fault attributable to the VA in causing it. Since there is a presumption that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a statute, Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932), a presumption surely at its most vigorous when a term is repeated within a given sentence, it is virtually impossible to read "injury" as laden with fault in the sentence quoted.
Textual cross-reference confirms this conclusion. "Injury" is employed elsewhere in the veterans' benefits statutes as an instance of the neutral term "disability," appearing within a series whose other terms exemplify debility free from any fault connotation. See 38 U. S. C. § 1701(1) (1988 ed., Supp. V) ("The term 'disability' means a disease, injury, or other physical or mental defect"). The serial treatment thus indicates that the same fault-free sense should be attributed to the term "injury" itself. Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961) ("[A] word is known by the company it keeps"). Moreover, in analogous statutes dealing with service-connected injuries the term "injury" is again used without any suggestion of fault, as the administrative regulation applicable to these statutes confirms by its failure to impose any fault requirement. Compare 38 U. S. C. § 1110 (1988 ed., Supp. V) ("disability resulting from personal injury suffered or disease contracted in line of duty,
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007