Court Case On Secret V.a. Rules

[deltaj]

Could someone post a link to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case entitled 2008-7076 Order of the Purple Heart and National Veterans Legal Services Program v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs? This case was decided September 10, 2009. It concerns V.A.'s secret internal rules permitting review of a decision by the C & P Director and reduction of a claimant's award without notice to the claimant or the claimant's representative if an award is $250,000 or more or the effective date is more than 8 years ago. What a creepy, crooked practice. Folks, if you are a V.A. claimant you leave your Constitutional rights to due process of law at the door as you enter the V.A.

Edited September 29, 2009 by deltaj

[broncovet]

Delta

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfsep09/nf091109-1.htm

This watchdog article will have links to the case and also their perspective on it. Hope this helps.

It also has some comments that might be worth reading.

Edited September 29, 2009 by broncovet

[Josephine]

I sure would like to know if there is anywhere those names are posted.

I received my 16 years retro June 2008 at the time all of this was going on.

Earlier in the year the gentleman at the toll free number told

me my file was being shipped to D.C. due to the amount of retro.

I have looked in my huge C-File box which arrived last

week looking for any clue.

I can't find a thing.

Someone robbed my box. No application for benefits and not much of anything that

would benefit me.

Thanks,

Betty

Edited September 29, 2009 by Josephine

[deltaj]

I sure would like to know if there is anywhere those names are posted.

I received my 16 years retro June 2008 at the time all of this was going on.

Earlier in the year the gentleman at the toll free number told

me my file was being shipped to D.C. due to the amount of retro.

I have looked in my huge C-File box which arrived last

week looking for any clue.

I can't find a thing.

Someone robbed my box. No application for benefits and not much of anything that

would benefit me.

Thanks,

Betty

Betty, You need to see a good veterans attorney like Kenneth Carpenter. Another idea would be to contact the attorneys on this case who brought suit against the government. There are so many ways V.A. cheats veterans. My husband filed a claim back in 1965 and did not list the names of the hospitals he was treated at in service. Years later he received one copy of his discharge from the Navy that showed the name of a particular hospital. Back in early 1967 when he mentioned his hospitalization to a doctor during a V.A. examination the rating decision on him was put in the wrong name. It wasn't until January 1995 that he obtained one report of the Naval Medical Board from the National Personnel Records Center and sent it to V.A. Unfortunately, we didn't know enough to mention 38 CFR 3.156 ( c ) and the original of the report is still at the National Personnel Records Center. In the meantime V.A. changed the wording of 38 CFR 3.156 ( c ) beginning in August 1995. They are so sneaky and low! By the way is there any place in the portion of the file you have where V.A. reduced your rating from 100% contrary to 38 CFR 3.343 and 38 CFR 3.344? I mention this because it might give whatever attorney you select the opportunity to reopen the door. Also, scroll down a little from this post to get to a post I did on another secret set of internal rules V.A. used beginning in 1980 on total disability individual unemployability (TDIU) and the federal circuit case overturning those rules. You need to be aware of both of these cases to help your attorney. Back in 1994 when my husband and I were moving out of state we used a St. Petersburg, Florida mail forwarding service to forward his V.A. checks and letters so V.A. forwarded his claims files to St. Petersburg, Florida during an appeal period right after the 1994 decision. Our representative couldn't help my husband appeal because he didn't have access to the claims folders. V.A. has been hiding behind finality of that 1994 decision ever since and a subsequent 1997 decision granting an earlier effective date did not address the issue of date of receipt of claim for increase. The effective date of that 1997 decision spanned back more than 8 years so I suspect my husband also got cheated by this secret set of rules.

Edited September 29, 2009 by deltaj

[JamesBreckenridge]

Aha! THIS is the court case that changed the rules about extraordinary awards! Someone else had said "James, I don't think they can do that anymore," and I was like, "Well, as far as I know, this is how we do it."

But I recently found out from our training team and the regular tranining and policy emails that this is NOT the way it's done, that we no longer send big retros to Central Office. It Seemed a reasonable safety protocol to me, but I also am pretty confident in my ratings.

You guys knew about this six weeks before I did.

At any rate, yup, no more VACO review of big retros.

[Pete53]

James:

Thanks for your input and also your frank and helpful posts helping Vets see that there are some dedicated people who work for the VA.

I think that the time you spend telling us what is needed to make a claim work is a gift.

Pete

[Berta]

http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nfsep09/nf091109-1.htm

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