Home Savings and Loan Association of Lawton, Oklahoma v. Robert P. Nimmo, Administrator of the Veterans Administration

In a dispute over the payment of a home loan subsidy, the majority invokes equitable principles to estop the Veterans Administration from asserting a congressionally authorized forgery defense. Relying on factual dissimilarities, the majority attempts to distinguish past Supreme Court decisions that have consistently sheltered the government from equitable estoppel.1 I believe that the majority’s distinctions will prove to be chimerical rather than precedential and will introduce new contradictions into an already confused area of law.2 Moreover, I believe that the majority’s approach diverts…