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VA Disability Claims: 5 Game-Changing Precedential Decisions You Need to Know
Tbird posted a record in VA Claims and Benefits Information,
These decisions have made a big impact on how VA disability claims are handled, giving veterans more chances to get benefits and clearing up important issues.
Service Connection
Frost v. Shulkin (2017)
This case established that for secondary service connection claims, the primary service-connected disability does not need to be service-connected or diagnosed at the time the secondary condition is incurred 1. This allows veterans to potentially receive secondary service connection for conditions that developed before their primary condition was officially service-connected.
Saunders v. Wilkie (2018)
The Federal Circuit ruled that pain alone, without an accompanying diagnosed condition, can constitute a disability for VA compensation purposes if it results in functional impairment 1. This overturned previous precedent that required an underlying pathology for pain to be considered a disability.
Effective Dates
Martinez v. McDonough (2023)
This case dealt with the denial of an earlier effective date for a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) 2. It addressed issues around the validity of appeal withdrawals and the consideration of cognitive impairment in such decisions.
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Tbird, -
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Are all military medical records on file at the VA?
RichardZ posted a topic in How to's on filing a Claim,
I met with a VSO today at my VA Hospital who was very knowledgeable and very helpful. We decided I should submit a few new claims which we did. He told me that he didn't need copies of my military records that showed my sick call notations related to any of the claims. He said that the VA now has entire military medical record on file and would find the record(s) in their own file. It seemed odd to me as my service dates back to 1981 and spans 34 years through my retirement in 2015. It sure seemed to make more sense for me to give him copies of my military medical record pages that document the injuries as I'd already had them with me. He didn't want my copies. Anyone have any information on this. Much thanks in advance.-
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RichardZ, -
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Caluza Triangle defines what is necessary for service connection
Tbird posted a record in VA Claims and Benefits Information,
Caluza Triangle – Caluza vs Brown defined what is necessary for service connection. See COVA– CALUZA V. BROWN–TOTAL RECALL
This has to be MEDICALLY Documented in your records:
Current Diagnosis. (No diagnosis, no Service Connection.)
In-Service Event or Aggravation.
Nexus (link- cause and effect- connection) or Doctor’s Statement close to: “The Veteran’s (current diagnosis) is at least as likely due to x Event in military service”-
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Tbird, -
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Post in ICD Codes and SCT CODES?WHAT THEY MEAN?
Timothy cawthorn posted an answer to a question,
Do the sct codes help or hurt my disability ratingPicked By
yellowrose, -
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Post in Chevron Deference overruled by Supreme Court
broncovet posted a post in a topic,
VA has gotten away with (mis) interpreting their ambigious, , vague regulations, then enforcing them willy nilly never in Veterans favor.
They justify all this to congress by calling themselves a "pro claimant Veteran friendly organization" who grants the benefit of the doubt to Veterans.
This is not true,
Proof:
About 80-90 percent of Veterans are initially denied by VA, pushing us into a massive backlog of appeals, or worse, sending impoverished Veterans "to the homeless streets" because when they cant work, they can not keep their home. I was one of those Veterans who they denied for a bogus reason: "Its been too long since military service". This is bogus because its not one of the criteria for service connection, but simply made up by VA. And, I was a homeless Vet, albeit a short time, mostly due to the kindness of strangers and friends.
Hadit would not be necessary if, indeed, VA gave Veterans the benefit of the doubt, and processed our claims efficiently and paid us promptly. The VA is broken.
A huge percentage (nearly 100 percent) of Veterans who do get 100 percent, do so only after lengthy appeals. I have answered questions for thousands of Veterans, and can only name ONE person who got their benefits correct on the first Regional Office decision. All of the rest of us pretty much had lengthy frustrating appeals, mostly having to appeal multiple multiple times like I did.
I wish I know how VA gets away with lying to congress about how "VA is a claimant friendly system, where the Veteran is given the benefit of the doubt". Then how come so many Veterans are homeless, and how come 22 Veterans take their life each day? Va likes to blame the Veterans, not their system.Picked By
Lemuel, -
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Question
Testvet
Col.
Member # 6
Member Rated:
posted March 20, 2006 08:01 AM
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President Gerald R Ford
PO Box 927
Rancho Mirage California 92270
Dear Mr. President 20 March 2006
I find it odd for the necessity to contact you for help, after more than 30 years . I watched President Nixon leave Washington DC in disgrace, and you a Congressman from Michigan sworn into office to take his place, I know you had been chosen to replace Agnew, who can forget, those of us who are old enough to remember?
I was sad to see Nixon leave, I thought he was a good President, compared to the one we have now, he was a saint. I went to DC that day, to watch him leave and you take his place. Why? I was 18 years old, a PV2 in the Army on Temporary Duty at Edgewood Arsenal. I was from Lansing Michigan, I had the day off, see as a human experimentation volunteer in the Army’s classified chemical weapons and drug research program, we had a lot of days off. That is how they enticed us to volunteer.
I will not debate or question the ethics, I am a man and I volunteered, but then again I was told as a service member that if I was injured or hurt while on active duty my family and I would be taken care of by a grateful government. Many commissions and even Justice Sandra Day Oconner have stated that the experiments that were performed on the 7120 men of Edgewood Arsenal between 1955 thru 1975 were as reprehensible as anything the Nazi’s did in WW2. It was a dissent opinion from the Stanley case, which SGT Stanley lost 5-4. He was later compensated by Congress.
The reason I am writing you now, is that I am totally disabled at age 50, I have been disabled for 5 years, I started having serious health problems at age 36, within months from returning home after duty during GW1. I was in blissful ignorance until October 2002, when I started looking at what had caused me to have the health of a 75 year old man at 45, was it Desert Storm, Fort Irwin, multiple vaccines for GW1. Then I remembered Edgewood, what I was to learn was frightening to me, I had never known about the Nazi doctors employed there before, I never knew they used 254 different substances on the 7120 men,
In March 2003 the IOM’s Dr William Page, released a report that glossed over the current health problems of the Edgewood test vets, he maintained a narrow focus on his health study, neurological problems only, he ignored cardiac, pulmonary and gastrointestinal systems.
What the report does state if you can read the fine print, that using Social Security records, IRS and VA records they could not locate 2098 of the men 40%, these were men between the ages of 45 and 80 in FY 2000. One can only presume they are dead, of the 4022 men they did find, 2200 men 54% reported being disabled, for a total of 74.43% death and disability rate. What is more remarkable is the fact 25% of the men were classified as level D test subjects and not exposed to any chemicals weapons nor drugs, to me that seems to round out to accountability of 100% of the men.
It is now 31 years since you ordered the human testing stopped at Edgewood and everywhere else in the US realm, and for that you will always have my gratitude, to many Presidents before you allowed it to continue, to me that is one of the greatest achievements of your Presidency, you saved thousands of lives by your orders.
I don’t know the reason why, if Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld is holding DOD from releasing the names of these honorable veterans to the Veterans Affairs so they can receive the benefits they and their families have so long been denied. I don’t know if it is they are afraid of the connection between the chemical weapons injuries of the Cold War tests being linked to the mess at Kamisayah, opening the government to large compensation claims from GW1 veterans.
The other option is that it would be embarrassing to the present administration that the US had thousands of injured US service men from tests of WMD;s that they chose to go to war over with Saddam.
The names that go from your administration to the present situation are, Dick Cheney, your chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense now and then, George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA.
DOD has stated that it will be FY 2009 before they can release the names of these men to the Veterans Administration, why after 31 years will it take 5 years, this statement was made to the Senate in a March 2004 hearing.
Mr President, you have 7120 honorable men who served their country and got involved in a very dangerous and wrong program that ran amok until you stopped it, and we are dying and have died, broke, without medical care and security for our wives and children.
Is there any way that you can find a way to get these men and their families the benefits they deserve, I am proud of you for stopping it, I am however now ashamed of how my government is treating these men and their families, and whatever the reason it is wrong and we all know it.
Your help would be greatly appreciated, I have been fighting with the VA since 2002 and going nowhere fast.
If the Institute of Medicine could find the names and addresses of the 7120 men in 1985 and again in 2000 for the two health studies, why can't the DOD which paid for the studies get the addresses from them?
how much money would it cost for 500,000 veterans to be compensated at the 100% rate or higher for 20-40 years? chemical wepaons injuries proved by Edgewood vets to the same problems GW1 vets are having.
SS and Medicare have the largest budget, where would the money have to come from? only budget left is DOD's
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Edited by Testvet100% SC P&T PTSD 100% CAD 10% Hypertension and A&A = SMC L, SSD
a disabled American veteran certified lol
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."
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