38 U.S.C. § 1132
Section 1132 · Presumption of sound condition
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Paulson v. Brown (1995)
Most recently applied in Simmons v. Wilkie (July 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
For the purposes of section 1131 of this title, every person employed in the active military, naval, air, or space service for six months or more shall be taken to have been in sound condition when examined, accepted and enrolled for service, except as to defects, infirmities, or disorders noted at the time of the examination, acceptance and enrollment, or where evidence or medical judgment is such as to warrant a finding that the disease or injury existed before acceptance and enrollment.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Editorial Notes
Amendments
2021—Pub. L. 116–283 substituted "air, or space service" for "or air service".
1991—Pub. L. 102–83, §5(a), renumbered section 332 of this title as this section.
Pub. L. 102–83, §5(c)(1), substituted "1131" for "331".