Holllie Greene

Researching the VA Legacy Appeals bottleneck and have some information which might be helpful.  I am in the Legacy Appeals program and I want to share whatever I have learned.  According to Comprehensive Plan for Processing Legacy Appeals and Implementing the Modernized Appeals System
Public Law 115-55, Section 3 the VA Board has dispatched 81,033 decisions in FY 2018.  Do some basic math and there are 260 working days p/year so their output is about 311 decisions per working day.
My Appeal is still at the RO and waiting on Certification.  According to va.gov there are 110,742 Appeals ahead of mine, so, if I apply the math above, my Appeal should take about a year to get to the Board.  Just a quick review of the process: File Form 9 (Prior to the new AMA which began Feb 2019) and it currently takes 623 days to get the Appeal Certified by the DRO.  Once the Appeal reaches the Board, we should get a Docket number and a 90 day window to submit new and material evidence directly to the Board.  The time from Certification to Hearing is about 17 months and then an additional 5 to 6 months after the Hearing to get the Board's Decision.
I've spent the last several days watching Congressional Hearings non stop.  There are a bunch of unfilled positions in VHA and VBA.  The VA has adequate funding and the new Law to adhere to.  I just can't determine what they're going to do about the backlog building each year.  Anything new, I'll report it here.
Ray

Thank you. 

Congratulations Sir.

Wow, I had my first AIT at Devens, had an accident, then had another AIT at another base.  It seems this never ends.  Still waiting for my appeal to be sorted out.

Congrats Broncovet.

Vync,
Such great news!!!  It is always great to hear wonderful news in the Hadit family!  😀

Welcome to the club none of us ever wants to belong to.

Congrats on the CUE win. This one's interesting. They (CUEs) are few and far between. If you "misargue" or "under-argue" them as described in Fugo v. Brown, you have to start all over. The VA may be "Veteran friendly" but a CUE is a collateral attack on a prior decision. Them's fighting words.
I have one very similar to this. My boy  boogered up his index finger when he was 6. When he enlisted at 18, they noted the finger didn't bend all the way back and touch his palm but accepted him anyway. No deduction noted. He qualified with his rt finger (dominant) as M 16 Expert. Army tries to "fix" finger and screws it up four times between 81-84. They give up and finally give him the boot after 12 yrs. w/ $30 K for LOU disability. He gets rated 70% for LOU of Rt. hand (and has to pay back the $30K) but... VA deducts 10% from it for pre-existing and arrives at 60%. This was done in 1992. I see it in the c-file in 2017 and file the CUE. 70%-10%= 67%. 60%+10%= 64%. It's impossible using §3.322(a)'s stricture on following  Part IV VASRD ratings table employing §4.25 to deduct 10% from 70% and come up with 60% unless, of course, you don't use VA math. The 1/2019 denial said his dominant hand NOW is his left hand. Try that out in front of a mirror with §4.69. You only get one dominant hand. It  can't migrate back. VA says it can and 70-10=60% where they come from. We appealed with a 958 NOD on 4/26/2019 and opted to keep it in Legacy. This way I get a live Travel Board  hearing in Portland, OR. They also took away a 26-year protected 20% rating on his leg in 1/2019. That's CUE #2. 
It'll get a SOC sometime this fall or early winter and then we get to go to the BVA and argue it in front of a real judge with a real Juris Doctorate. It's sad I have to fight this for four or more years but the Vet will benefit financially. And boy howdy does he need the $. 
 

Thanks @broncovet
Thanks @Buck52
 

Way to go @Vync!!!

@Vync Superb logic with that, Sir! These are the parts of the claim process that tend to give me the most satisfaction; being able to adjudicate your claim better than the VARO HA!

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice
Congrats man!  🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Congratulations on the win Vync!!!

My thanks go out to everyone here on hadit.com! In September 2019, I filed two CUE claims. One was granted and the other was denied, but will be appealed. 
In 1995, I filed a claim for rhinitis/sinusitis (38 CFR 4.97 DC 6501/6522) and it was granted on appeal in 2000 due to aggravation of pre-existing disability. 30% was awarded, but it was reduced by 10% to 20% due to the C&P examiner's opinion: “OPINION: In my opinion, the veteran obviously had allergic problems before entering the service which got worse while he was in the service…” After fighting for five years, I was elated and took the VSO's advice not to rock the boat.
In 2009, I found hadit.com and began educating myself. I always felt something was not quite right and began researching this issue. I was still worried about rocking the boat, but in 2019 I finally got the courage to move forward after having a heart attack and realizing life is short. I performed extensive research and filed the CUE claim in September 2019. Because of the ridiculously strict CUE rules, I was required to use laws in effect at the time the rating decision was made, which were found in old copies of the Federal Register. Another challenge was boiling it down to just the facts, removing emotional factors, and presenting the error from the perspective of a reasonable person (i.e. 8th grade reading level, if that).
The VA failed to properly apply this pivotal law from 1961:
Two key factors apply:
1. VA must determine the level of disability existing at the time of entrance into active service
2. If the VA cannot determine the level of disability existing at the time of entrance into active service in terms of the rating schedule, they are not allowed to reduce the rating.
 
I then looked up the rating criteria in effect in 2000:
 
My entrance exam was "normal". The C&P found polyps to justify the 30% rating. Can "normal" be ascertained in terms of the rating schedule? No.
 
Other than including a copy of the evidence, relevant laws in effect at the time, and showing how the VA failed to follow the laws when making the decision, this summarizes the entire situation:
 
After the VA received my CUE packet, it took them 127 days to complete the request. Six weeks were wasted by the VA requesting copies of relevant medical records from the VAMC, despite those records already being present in my claims file. Considering the fact that my claims file was partially scrambled and even contained other veterans documents, I kind of don't blame them for re-requesting the records so they have them contiguously. One week was wasted by someone at the VARO asking if a CUE needed to be submitted on a specific form (as of today, not required per M21-1).
 
As for my other CUE, it was for TMJ and failing properly apply DeLuca and ROM laws. The rating decision contained even less detail than the original decision. In effect, they made the exact same error again, so I will be appealing.

Super, Vync! Now that has to make your day! Congrats.

Thanks Alex for letting us see what it looks like.

@asknod Is there a button they use to issue rubber stamp denials?

I agree with Buck, we should all have access to VBMS.  My status is still set to not let my VSO into my VBMS though.  Even if they let us have access we probably would not have access due to the security levels set.

I get asked by Vets what VBMS looks like and what we can see. The truth is we can see quite a bit. We can see about a week ahead when your claim is getting ready to be granted. Often we can see the denial brewing by the little blue symbols that look like a judge's gavel beside important documents.  Well, here's a peek at our new Windows 10 version that came out several weeks ago. Of course, I woke up January 15th and realized I had no idea how to get in. I had to call IT for help. VA contracts out to an outfit called the Enterprise Service Desk. The babe who answered had no idea what to do either. Nobody had briefed her in yet. I finally stumbled through it until I got in. Anyway, just for the experience, I thought i would share it with you fellow members. 
https://asknod.org/2020/01/27/va-the-new-vbms-users-primer/
 

Getting migraines rated as extra-scheduler, above 50%, is difficult to do.  I lost my job due to migraines and was still only rated at 50%.  The VA underrates headaches period in my book.  I was so sick at the time that I could not even be depended on to work a full 40 hour week with any consistency.  I had medical evidence and lay evidence to back this up.  The only case where migraines were rated at above 50% that I know of was a service man that had headaches that looked like seizures and he was rated as seizures instead of headaches.
As far as being rated at 0%, start a headache log and appeal to the BVA.  If you are not listed as 0% in ebenies I would use the letter to appeal to the VA to have them added.

VA is so petty. so frustrating. they rated me for headaches at 0% even though i have 15 headaches a month with at least 2 being "prostrating". in my letter they say headaches rated at 0% but then didnt even address them in the rest of the letter. then i go to ebennies and its not even listed- 0% or not service connected or anything-  just not listed! 
of course this is one of my appeals right now. sorry you are having to deal with this bull malarkey buddy but dont give up!
 

Great news!!!  Good for you!!!

It’s a bad wind that doesn’t blow some good news to somebody. 
Called Peggy and was told IU was pending decision approval.
Called VSO (yet to fax termination) and he looked at the decision and I was denied IU but granted increase to 100% plus SMC S with code sheet indicating no future exams. 
Still awaiting va.gov update & BBE.... 

I was helping a widow of an ALS victim get benefits from the VA.  She decided to use a VSO also.  When she filed a FDC the VA denied her as for some stupid reason the death certificate stated they were separated at the time of his death.  I requested that she cite CFR 3.214 in that she was his spouse but they filed a Supplemental claim with a revised death certificate and two buddy letters.  The claim finished last week and she received back pay for about a year and begins receiving benefits this month.  

Here's another one.
https://asknod.org/2019/12/31/vba-seattle-carry-on-my-wayward-son/